The Barbie movie, released in July, has already appeared on streaming platforms and has also been unofficially released on TikTok. This and many other films are shown there, bypassing official sources, divided into short videos that can be watched one after the other, the newspaper writes The Wall Street Journal.
Image source: Alexander Shatov/unsplash.com
Hollywood lawyers argue that accounts posting such clips violate the copyright and intellectual property rights of film and television studios, which explains why posts may use clip titles like “Part 8” instead of the actual titles of the films.
Accounts that publish such content have hundreds of thousands of subscribers as well as many comments, likes and views, but do not make any money because there are no sponsored posts or paid advertising. These videos are typically two to three minutes long, but can be up to 10 minutes long.
TikTok has long been a popular form of entertainment. It has surpassed Instagram in total time spent on views per day.✴, reports research firm Insider Intelligence. The algorithm used by the video service tells users what to eat, drink, buy and watch. The 30-year-old audio engineer from Chicago subscribes to several streaming services, including Netflix and Hulu, but prefers watching videos on TikTok because its algorithm shows entertainment programs without having to search for them in other apps, writes The Wall Street Journal. “I don’t turn on the TV as much as I used to because TikTok is all in my hands.” – noted the sound engineer.
Enforcing copyright on social media is no easy task, but on the other hand, pirating posts could benefit studios by exposing their content to new audiences, legal experts say. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) protects a platform from penalties if it promptly responds to copyright infringement claims from film companies. “As long as the platform promptly removes infringing materials upon notification, it remains protected.” says Aaron Moss, a copyright attorney at Greenberg Glusker in Los Angeles. TikTok, in turn, said it prohibits content that violates intellectual property rights and responds to notices of infringement from copyright holders.
Some entertainment companies may not complain about posting such clips online because TikTok could help boost the popularity of a particular movie or TV show, said Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown University Law Center. He added that distributing content to a wider audience could benefit copyright holders by attracting users’ attention and boosting sales of the product.
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