BEIJING (Reuters) – More than 70 Chinese film and television show makers and associations called for short video platforms to immediately take down any of their content which was being used without authorisation, China’s national broadcaster reported.
Attracted by visual content excerpts taken from films or TV shows, often without authorisation, hundreds of millions of Chinese internet users have turned to short video platforms as a source of both humour and information.
The group, which includes video streaming platforms iQIYI, Tencent Video and Alibaba’s Youku, published a list of demands calling on short video platforms to immediately purge any unauthorised content, CCTV reported on Friday.
They also urged platforms to step up content moderation efforts to prevent future infringements, such as deploying technologies including keyword filtering.
Two weeks ago, the same group warned short video platforms it would take legal action if platform operators allowed pirated content to continue to proliferate.
Popular short video operators in China include Kuaishou and ByteDance-owned Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, where hundreds of millions of Chinese users watch short videos, live streams and shop on the two apps.
Kuaishou and ByteDance did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
(Reporting by Yingzhi Yang, Colin Qian and Tom Daly; Editing by Alexander Smith)
