By: Teagan Raffenbeul

Why purchase streaming service accounts when you can watch your favorite movies and TV shows on TikTok for free? It’s no secret TikTok users can effortlessly find clips from a wide array of movies and series as they scroll their For You Page. Often, movies appear in multiple parts, prompting users to navigate to account profiles to find additional clips.

It’s unclear exactly why people are drawn to watching movies in this format. Perhaps viewers are captivated by an attention-grabbing scene that hooks their interest, with the “best” part of the movie appearing on their For You Page. Maybe there is a sense of community created by shared observations and opinions posted in the comments section. Or is it because of the ability to easily skip parts of a movie viewers don’t resonate with, or that they find boring? Whatever the reason, this phenomenon is happening, and it’s widespread, with users having access to countless videos on TikTok under searches like “full-length movies.” Further, tips for users found under searches like “how to upload movies on TikTok without copyright” are easily accessible.

TikTok’s limited upload length led to movies being separated into 10 to 100 parts, requiring viewers to sift through accounts and comment sections to find the next clip. Some argue watching a movie in short clips fails to capture a movie’s essence, leaving viewers to miss the movie’s deeper meaning and fail to connect with the film in the same way they would while watching on a bigger screen. However, with TikTok now allowing users to upload and watch hour-long videos, users can watch nearly an entire movie simply by scrolling through their For You Page. Often, people aren’t going to TikTok to seek out these movies, but they watch simply because the clips happen to appear on their screens.

Despite this phenomenon becoming normalized, providing easy access to pirated movies openly violates U.S. copyright law. The U.S. Copyright Act protects “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated.” Motion pictures and other audiovisual works are specifically covered under Section 102(a)(6). Additionally, owning a copyright in a work of authorship grants an exclusive right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the work and is supposed to provide protection against online piracy.

Movies, clearly covered under the Copyright Act, generally obtain copyright protection the moment the work becomes “fixed.” A work is “fixed” when it is captured in a permanent medium so it may be perceived or reproduced. Copyright protection generally lasts for 70 years after the author’s death. However, movies are often considered a “work made for hire,” resulting in a longer copyright protection lasting 95 years from publication date, or 120 from its creation, whichever lasts longer. This means that any movies users find on TikTok are most likely still under copyright protection. 

Not only are users engaging in copyright infringement when uploading movie content, but they may also be profiting from it. To expand revenue sharing for creators, TikTok created an initiative allowing for longer videos to be posted. The longer the video, the more a user may get paid. Despite the threat of copyright infringement, hour-long uploads acquire hundreds of thousands of views, and in turn, increased revenue can create a strong incentive for individuals to post long-form videos. And with the only perceivable repercussion being potential account removal, users continue to upload entire movies.

TikTok clearly lays out in its policy that it does not tolerate posting, sharing, or sending content that violates another’s copyright or intellectual property right without proper authorization or a legally valid reason. However, this is not a “zero-tolerance” policy. TikTok allows for users to post up to three infringing videos per intellectual property type under their Repeat Infringer Policy before account deactivation. Under this policy, copyright and trademark strikes are counted separately, giving users additional opportunities to upload infringing content before deactivation. Further, the account may not be directly linked to them, allowing users to easily create a new account after being deactivated.

The question is, how can copyright holders combat this? Will studios create positions with titles like “Social Media Copyright Enforcer” where their only job will be to find and report infringing content on social media platforms? In reality, the only real recourse currently appears to be provided in the reporting mechanisms under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. 

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, there is a “safe harbor” provision for online service providers, like TikTok, to protect them from copyright infringement liability. If an online service provider creates a “notice-and-takedown” system that allows copyright holders to report and request the removal of infringing content, the online service provider will not be liable for infringing content that is uploaded to their platform.

TikTok does provide a “notice-and-takedown” system that allows copyright holders to submit reports of alleged copyright infringement to prompt removal of the content. TikTok, therefore, is not necessarily responsible for monitoring copyright infringement and cannot be held responsible for infringing content uploaded to its platform. 

As a result of TikTok’s policy, the responsibility of removing infringing content from TikTok falls on the copyright holders. However, finding and reporting the countless movie uploads may be a challenge, especially with new videos surfacing constantly. Last year alone, over 8 million content removals occurred, and 80,000 accounts reportedly faced copyright infringement violations. These numbers do not include the numerous uploaded movie clips that remain available on the platform, indicating the extent of this phenomenon is even larger. TikTok’s policy and the proliferation of this trend make it nearly impossible for copyright holders to find and report all infringing content.

Now, with TikTok expanding upload lengths to an hour long, users can upload almost an entire movie in one clip. Not only would this eliminate the negatives of viewing movies in short clips, but it might also encourage more individuals to engage with movies in this format. Additionally, if TikTok continues its trend of permitting longer video uploads, it’s possible that in the future, we will begin to see one-and-a-half to two-hour-long videos. This would easily cover countless movies where the entire work is at people’s fingertips for free. Extending upload lengths like this can further complicate the already challenging landscape of copyright enforcement. There’s a risk that surges in infringing content may occur as more viewers seek access to full movies, making it more difficult for copyright holders to monitor and report infringing content and for TikTok to manage takedown requests. As a result, more unauthorized content might go unnoticed, granting millions of people easy access to pirated movies.

#WJLTA #tiktok #copyrightlaw #movies