Seedance 2.0 is a viral sensation! When AI can reference your brand's promotional video with a single click, trademark registration becomes the last line of defense.

The "Copying" Crisis in the AI Era

Recently, ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 has sparked a bombshell discussion in the creative community. Simply upload a picture or a video as a "reference," and AI can generate a 15-second, smoothly-moved, cinematic-quality short film.

For creators, this is undoubtedly a cost-saving tool; but as content creators, we must see the other side of the problem: the cost of "copying" content is now close to zero.

Imagine if your competitor, or some business looking to ride the wave of popularity, simply dumped your carefully taken product photos into Seedance 2.0 and entered the command: "Refer to this style and generate a promotional video." A few seconds later, an advertisement brimming with your brand's content would be born.

Can copyright law protect you?

Many customers ask us, "Does this kind of AI-generated video constitute copyright infringement?"

This is a highly controversial legal grey area. The current Hong Kong Copyright Ordinance primarily protects the "original" input of human authors. When infringers use AI-recalculated pixels instead of directly "copying and pasting" your original file, proving the other party's "plagiarism" becomes extremely difficult and expensive.

This is why we recommend that in the AI era, trademarks are more suitable than copyrights as the first line of defense.

Trademark Registration: Your Brand

Unlike copyright, trademark registration protects "identifiability" and "source".

If a video or image generated by the other party causes "confusion" among consumers, making them mistakenly believe that it is your trademarked product or related to your trademark, it constitutes trademark infringement, regardless of whether it is drawn by AI or by a human.

Faced with powerful tools like Seedance 2.0, we recommend that small and medium-sized business owners immediately review the following three points:

Defensive Registration:

Don't just register word marks. Your logo, mascot, and even the unique color scheme of your product packaging should all be trademarked. This is the most effective legal weapon against AI "visual imitation."

Active monitoring:

Regularly search the market for AI-generated content similar to your style. Once you find it, having a registered trademark gives you more confidence to issue removal notices to platforms (such as YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and The Red Note) or send lawyer's letters.

Preserving evidence of creation:

When using AI-assisted marketing, be sure to keep records of your human edits and creative brainstorming process. This demonstrates that your brand assets include "human intellectual input," which is crucial in future legal battles.

Conclusion

No matter how powerful the technological tools are, they still need to comply with regulations to last. Seedance 2.0 lowered the barrier to video production, but it also inadvertently lowered the barrier to infringement. Before your brand becomes a viral sensation and turns into "training material" for someone else's AI, first build up your legal defenses.

If you are unsure whether your current trademark protection is sufficient to withstand the impact of AI, please contact us. The Reg Easy IP team is always ready to provide you with professional IP strategy advice.

👉 Contact us now: +852 2810 6861

👉 Free trademark search: https://www.regeasy.hk