Are TikTok videos protected by copyright law? Many people have made a career out of posting TikTok videos. They have used their videos to build brands, become influencers, and even launch marketing/acting/singing careers.
Anyone who has worked to build a successful TikTok platform knows exactly how much thought and effort go into the creation of each video. As their platform grows, they have also discovered how highly prized a good video and even an entire account is to people who want the success of a TikTok platform but who aren’t willing to actually create one of their own.
The surge of TikTok videos and even accounts that are getting hacked, stolen, and even copied has made people ask if the TikTok videos they post are protected by copyright law.
The answer is that when it comes to TikTok and copyright law, the issue is murky.
The sad reality is that it appears that TikTok is less concerned about protecting the content that people post to the video channel and more concerned with the idea that account owners are actually using copyrighted content. As a result, it’s far easier for, say, a singer who has a song that someone used in a TikTok video without the artist’s permission than it is for a video creator to argue that their entire video was stolen by another user.
If you are a content creator and are worried about your TikTok videos getting copied and used by someone else, it’s up to you to make sure that each video you post is copyrighted.
The first thing you need to do is read through TikTok’s Intellectual Property Policy. This is a great way to learn exactly what legal rights you do and don’t retain once you post your video. When you read through this policy, you’ll discover that as far as TikTok is concerned, you retain full ownership of your video. This is good news should your video be stolen. You can pursue legal action, though the experience will likely be costly. Just beware that based on the past experiences of some people, TikTok has not been very supportive when it comes to reclaiming your videos and even your hacked account.
Another thing to keep in mind when creating TikTok videos is that it’s a great deal easier to prove that a video is yours is keeping all the work you’ve done on it. Don’t delete things like your outline, your script, and unedited versions of your video. Save these in your cloud or as an email attachment. Having these things can really help you prove that you are, in fact, the creator of the video and, therefore, the only person who can use the content.