Introduction
TikTok has recently become a viral platform for creating short videos, often set to music, having over 1 billion users. There is a problem that many users use unlicensed music tracks in their videos, which moderation does not block and delete. Moreover, the TikTok administration often turns a blind eye to the use of pirated content, as songwriters and artists receive a huge boost in popularity and recognition due to the explosive popularity of the platform. Although the media extensively discusses TikTok relations with music companies and mostly concentrates on legal issues (Chalmers, 2020), the users’ perception of intellectual property is marginally discussed. The research problem of the paper is the little academic knowledge of users’ attitudes toward TikTok’s intellectual property policies. The real-life experience of regular users will help to know about TikTok’s level of commitment to Intellectual Property rules. Such knowledge will inform the academic and songwriting communities about the problems associated with violations of the use of unlicensed music.​​
Background
To understand the context of the research, background information about TikTok needs to be laid. In the United States, TikTok is constantly accused of insufficient protection of users’ personal data. Since TikTok is a Chinese organization, the public asks questions about the platform’s ties to the Chinese government. For example, Guardian noted that the 2019 protests in Hong Kong were poorly covered in the app, especially among younger users (Hern, 2020). Not knowing the algorithms for selecting videos in the “For You” tab, journalists ask well-grounded questions about the possibility of transmitting information about individuals of interest to official China. According to TikTok’s terms of use, the platform collects information about IP addresses, device IDs, and TikTok activity, such as messages inside the platform (“Privacy Policy,” 2021). This list presents a critical set of information that can be used against certain users. However, TikTok denies the accusations, stating that servers with information about American citizens are in Virginia and backed up in Singapore (Sanger, 2020). Although that fact does not confirm the independence of TikTok, indirect factors indicate the lack of evidence for accusations. This storyline indicates the context around TikTok that can influence users’ attitudes.
An integral part of the literature review will be the accumulation of information about the problems with intellectual property in TikTok. TikTok’s terms of use imply the fact that any use of an image of a brand logo or a music track that does not comply with the intellectual property regulation will lead to the removal or blocking of unlicenced content (“Intellectual Property Policy,” 2021). Therefore, if the content was uploaded to the platform without prior approval from the creator, TikTok needs to remove it. To solve the issues, TikTok has signed contacts with National Music Publishers Association and ICE (organization supporting songwriters from the UK, Germany, and Sweden) in recent two years (Barry, 2021). Nevertheless, TikTok is full of audio tracks labeled as “original sound,” which were uploaded by regular users without the creator’s permission. One possible explanation for this ignorance of copyright holders is the immense popularity of TikTok and its ability to create hype.
Research questions
I see the main result of the research in forming a general picture of how users perceive the rules of intellectual property. For this purpose, data mining from Twitter and TikTok may be used with the aim of finding messages, posts, or tweets related to intellectual property in TikTok. In fact, the information obtained from these activities should be analyzed and summarized to inform the academic community about users’ perceptions of policies pursued by the TikTok administration.
This study was the result of TikTok’s attempts to partner with blockchain companies to track intellectual property infringements (Hissong, 2021). In music streaming services such as Apple Music and Spotify, blockchain technologies are used to keep track of how often tracks are being played. This allows streaming services to pay artists for their popularity. TikTok will utilize blockchain technology to prevent the distribution of unlicenced content while also earning income for artists. There was a suggestion that new restrictions on content availability would have a negative impact on the user experience on TikTok.
The research question posed in the study is: How do TikTok users perceive the platform’s application of intellectual property rules? This question is beneficial because it sets the concrete limitations of the research result. The research methodology will be related to the several-step model of data collection and analysis. Firstly, the blocks of text where users’ opinion on intellectual property rules is expressed will be collected. After that, when the sample is considered big, some analysis in R studio may show the frequencies of word use concerning emotions on the intellectual policies in the TikTok platform.
Methodology
For this work, quantitative methods will be used because the Internet contains thousands of posts and comments discussing some acute issues of TikTok policies. The preference for this method may show more accurate information about users’ opinions because such methods usually deal with large samples. The possible limitation may be that the picking of tweets can be influenced by the subjective opinion of the researcher who created the sample.
Data will be collected from Twitter and TikTok through the tool called Data Miner. For example, the phrase “Intellectual Property TikTok” typed in the search line may determine the circle of posts and tweets discussing copyright rules. Then, this information may be analyzed in two ways: descriptive and analytical. In the first instance, the collected sample of opinions on intellectual property will be discussed and overviewed. In the second instance, the quantitative methods of text clusterization, word lemmatization, and frequency estimation are the most beneficial. They will show the integral themes that appear in the majority of comments.
References
Brandom, R. (2020). TikTok’s problems are all about China — and they’ll be hard to fix. The Verge. Web.
Chalmers, C. (2020). From copycat dances to unlicensed music: Is TikTok a copyright lawsuit waiting to happen? TFL. Web.
Chalmers, C. (2020). TikTok TikTok Boom! The Ticking Time Bomb Threat Of Copyright Infringement Claims For The Burgeoning Social Media Platform. Mondaq. Web.
Deccan Chronicle. (2020). TikTok can be used to steal Intellectual Property, expect strong action: Trump aide. Web.
Gleason, A. P. (2020). Copyright Owners’ Love/Hate Relationship with TikTok and Instagram Raises Legal Issue. The National Law Review. Web.
Hern, A. (2020). TikTok fails to shake off authoritarian links to Chinese state. Guardian. Web.
Hissong, S. (2021). And the first streaming service to partner with TikTok is…Rolling Stone. Web.
Huang, Y., & Levy, J. (2020). In Forcing TikTok Sale, the US. Is Taking a Page Out of China’s Playbook. Carnegie. Web.
Intellectual property policy. (2021). (n.d.). TikTok. Web.
Michalko, M. (2020). How TikTok Used Blockchain to Defeat Copyright Infringement. IP Watchdog. Web.
Privacy policy. (2021). (n.d.). TikTok. Web.
Ruane, J. M. (2016). Introducing social research methods: Essentials for getting the edge. John Wiley & Sons.
Sanger, D. A. (2020). TikTok deal exposes a security gap and a missing China strategy. New York Times. Web.
Tamny, J. (2020). America’s Puzzling Theft Of TikTok Mocks ‘IP Theft’ Paranoia. Forbes. Web.