Is your company struggling with copyright infringement in TikTok posts and ads?
It can be frustrating for your team to take the time to document the issue, submit a TikTok copyright infringement form, and follow up. You might wait up to a couple of weeks for fake accounts to get suspended or taken down, all the while the infringers keep selling and advertising.
Searching for infringing TikTok accounts manually takes time as well, and you risk missing posts that don’t use your company or product names explicitly. This all adds up to a process that can feel sluggish compared to how fast infringers appear on the platform.
Below, we’ll explain how to report a copyright infringement on TikTok from start to finish. We’ll also show you how you can scale takedowns with Red Points for more comprehensive enforcement.
How to report a TikTok copyright infringement: Step-by-step
The basic steps for how to report a copyright infringement on TikTok include opening the correct form, entering your contact information, providing copyright ownership proof, linking the infringing content, and agreeing to the terms of the report. Let’s walk through the steps.
Step 1: Open the TikTok copyright infringement form
Start by opening a TikTok copyright infringement form. You can either visit the form directly at the link or arrive there by reporting a post on TikTok and selecting intellectual property as the reason.
Tip: Gather information ahead of time
TikTok’s form requires contact information (which may be shared with the infringer), evidence of copyright ownership with documentation, and URLs for content to report. Gather these materials before you start to simplify the process.
Step 2: Enter your contact information
The next step is to add basic information about yourself, including your full name, the copyright owner’s name, your email address, your physical address, and your phone number. TikTok may share your contact information with the person who has posted the alleged infringed content. So, make sure to provide only your business email and office number for privacy.
Step 3: Show a representation of your copyrighted work
Next, choose what type of copyright you own and provide ownership details. You can report an infringement for video, original music, non-music audio, photo, logo, or something else. Then, select whether the source of your copyrighted material is on your TikTok account, an account you represent, or outside of TikTok. In many cases, TikTok infringers steal images and logos from outside the app, so this last option lets you provide URLs to examples outside TikTok.
Step 4: Describe the copyright and add documentation
Now, provide a clear description of the work that was infringed by a TikTok account. Describe the type, appearance, usage, and any other details to support your case.
At this step, you’ll also upload copyright documentation, like a certificate or license agreement. If you are acting on behalf of the copyright owner, you’ll have to supply a power of attorney or a signed statement describing your relationship to the owner.
Step 5: Link the content to be reported
Provide URLs to all infringing TikTok posts or accounts that apply to this copyright. You can also request TikTok to prevent future infringing videos, which may help prevent the same video from appearing again.
This step gives you the option to add additional information, as well. This could include screenshots of the TikTok accounts or screenshots of phishing websites the TikTok page links to if applicable.
Step 6: Agree to the TikTok terms, sign the form, and submit
The final step is to agree to the terms set out by TikTok. This includes acknowledging that the information you have shared in the form may be shared with the user you are reporting for copyright infringement. Sign with your name and, finally, submit the form.
What is TikTok’s intellectual property policy?
TikTok’s Copyright Policy and Community Guidelines prohibit any kind of content that infringes on third-party intellectual property. The use of copyrighted content by others on TikTok without their knowledge, proper authorization, or a legally valid reason can lead to a violation of the platform’s policies.
Examples of copyright infringement on TikTok
Here are some common examples of copyright infringement on TikTok:
- Uploading trademarked or copyrighted content without prior authorization
- Advertising a product using a brand’s trademark product photos, without any direct affiliation with the brand
- Reposting another user’s copyrighted content
TikTok allows users to repost content freely. If the reposted content is infringed, it would only get taken down by the platform when the copyright owners directly ask it to be taken down.
Is TikTok protected by fair use?
Yes, in accordance with US law, much of TikTok’s content may be usable under the fair use doctrine. TikTok is also protected by permitted acts of fair dealing in the European Union (and other equivalent exceptions that might fall under local laws in other countries).
It allows people to use even unauthorized copyright works under certain conditions and circumstances, like criticism, commentary, research, and scholarship.
Whether a use is deemed fair is usually determined on a case-by-case basis, but it does leave a wide room for speculation.
What happens after I submit the report?
After you submit a TikTok copyright infringement form, it can take anywhere from a day to a couple of weeks to see the content removed. This is because TikTok reviews each report to verify its validity. This might not be fast enough for you, and it’s worth considering that Red Points has a direct connection to TikTok’s API that can speed up takedowns.
What if there’s something wrong with my report?
TikTok will reach out to the email address you used to file the report. So, keep an eye on your inbox. This may or may not be the email associated with your company’s TikTok account, so keep that in mind. It’s important to be as thorough as possible to avoid delays with your report.
If nothing has happened to the infringing content after a couple of weeks, you can resubmit the report or reach out to TikTok support. When you work with Red Points, we communicate with TikTok on your behalf to resolve any issues.
How Red Points helps with copyright protection on TikTok
Reporting infringements on TikTok individually can remove them, but it takes lots of time. Red Points simplifies social media protection by taking down copyright infringements on TikTok at scale. Our AI-powered brand protection platform combines automation with expert human oversight to take down validated infringements en masse.
With our strong partnership with TikTok, you can leverage priority enforcement instead of manual work filling out forms. Plus, our platform scans TikTok regularly for keywords, logos, and image objects to catch many more brand impersonation attempts than manual searching.
Scammers rarely stick to a single account or platform, so our strategy provides holistic protection across platforms. This means you can uncover a TikTok post leading to a phishing website and get both taken down, not just the TikTok post. At the end of the day, we take the burden of brand protection off your team, streamlining what would otherwise be a slow, manual, and fragmented process.
Next steps: Protect your brand on TikTok with Red Points
To wrap up, we covered how to report a copyright infringement on TikTok in six steps:
- Open the copyright infringement form
- Enter your contact information
- Show examples of your copyright
- Add documentation like a license or registration
- Add links to the infringing posts on TikTok
- Agree to the terms and submit
This takedown process is supported by TikTok’s intellectual property policy, which allows for fair use but not infringement. A successful submission can take effect in as little as a day, but it takes time to report manually. Red Points offers a scalable detection and removal strategy that stops TikTok infringements automatically.
Ready to stop copyright infringement on TikTok? Reach out for a quick demo today to see how Red Points can protect your audience from engaging with fakes on the platform.
