Japanese officials express intention to investigate Seedance 2.0

Japanese AI (Artificial Intelligence) Strategy Minister Kimie Onoda held a press conference after the Cabinet meeting on the 13th, stating concerns that Chinese AI video generation model services “may infringe on copyrights and produce inappropriate images.” Some have pointed out that this service can freely generate videos using Japanese anime characters and other content. She said she will “accelerate understanding of the actual situation of the service” and revealed that the government intends to investigate. The AI video generation model is Seedance 2.0, developed by ByteDance, the company behind the short video app TikTok. Multiple videos created by this AI have been circulated on social media platforms (SNS), including videos featuring characters that resemble Prime Minister Sanae Sato. Onoda stated she is aware of the actual dissemination and emphasized that if copyrighted works are used without permission from the rights holders, it cannot be ignored. She also mentioned that she will communicate with ByteDance to work on improving the situation. Regarding generative AI, besides the aforementioned service, other services also face issues where existing characters or real people are used without permission to create images or videos, which has become a social problem. (Kokusei Chokutsu)