On behalf of the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice sued video-sharing platform TikTok, its parent company ByteDance, as well as its affiliated companies, with flagrantly violating a children’s privacy law—the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act—and also alleged they infringed an existing FTC 2019 consent order against TikTok for violating COPPA.The complaint alleges defendants failed to comply with the COPPA requirement to notify and obtain parental consent before collecting and using personal information from children under the age of 13.“TikTok knowingly and repeatedly violated kids’ privacy, threatening the safety of millions of children across the country,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “The FTC will continue to use the full scope of its authorities to protect children online—especially as firms deploy increasingly sophisticated tik tik digital tools to surveil kids and profit from their data.”“The Justice Department is committed to upholding parents’ ability to protect their children’s privacy,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton. “This action is necessary to prevent the defendants, who are repeat offenders and operate on a massive scale, from collecting and using young children’s private information without any parental consent or control.”ByteDance and its related companies allegedly were aware of the need to comply with the COPPA Rule and the 2019 consent order and knew about TikTok’s compliance failures that put children’s data and privacy at risk. Instead of complying, ByteDance and TikTok spent years knowingly allowing millions of children under 13 on their platform designated for users 13 years and older in violation of COPPA, according to the complaint.As of 2020, TikTok had a policy of maintaining accounts of children that it knew were under 13 unless the child made an explicit admission of age and other rigid conditions were met, according to the complaint. TikTok human reviewers allegedly spent an average of only five to seven seconds reviewing each account to make their determination of whether the account belonged to a child. The company allegedly continued to collect personal data from these underage users, ……

The Justice Department, together with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), today filed a civil lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against TikTok Inc., ByteDance Ltd., and their affiliates (together, TikTok) for violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and its implementing regulations (COPPA) in connection with the popular TikTok app.COPPA prohibits website operators from knowingly collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under the age of 13, unless they provide notice to and obtain consent from those children’s parents. It also requires website operators to delete personal information collected from children at their parents’ request. In 2019, the government sued TikTok’stik tik predecessor, Musical.ly, for COPPA violations, and since then the defendants have been subject to a court order requiring them to undertake specific measures to comply with COPPA.According to the complaint, from 2019 to the present, TikTok knowingly permitted children to create regular TikTok accounts and to create, view, and share short-form videos and messages with adults and others on the regular TikTok platform. The defendants collected and retained a wide variety of personal information from these children without notifying or obtaining consent from their parents. Even for accounts that were created in “Kids Mode” (a pared-back version of TikTok intended for children under 13), the defendants unlawfully collected and retained children’s email addresses and other types of personal information. Further, when parents discovered their children’s accounts and asked the defendants to delete the accounts and information in them, the defendants frequently failed to honor those requests. The defendants also had deficient and ineffectual internal policies and processes for identifying and deleting TikTok accounts created by children. The defendants engaged in the above-described conduct despite being subject to a court order barring them from violating COPPA and imposing measures designed to ensure their compliance. TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. The defendants’ COPPA violations have re……

From vlogs to DIY tutorials and funny cat videos, TikTok is the latest social media platform for sharing audiovisual content of all types. TikTok’s popularity exploded during the lockdowns of 2020, and it clearly won’t be losing traction anytime tik tik soon.It’s no surprise that everyone from beauty influencers to gamers and even business owners are using TikTok’s easy accessibility and massive popularity to their advantage. But what should monetized tik tik creators consider from a legal standpoint when it comes to TikTok copyright music?Every social platform, including TikTok, has rules and regulations surrounding copyright infringement in content posted to their platforms. It’s to be expected when you have millions of individual creators and companies uploading videos with the freedom to share them as they please.TikTok users are subject to tik tik copyright law just like any YouTube or Instagram creator. The difference is that this platform is relatively new, so it can be easier to fly under the radar. But that’s a huge risk! Your hard work could be muted or taken down altogether.So, how do you avoid copyright issues on TikTok and tik tik still include high-quality music in your videos? Let’s take a deep dive into how to use copyrighted music on TikTok legally.Sometimes it’s best to start with the basics. So what exactly is copyright and what defines copyright infringement? According to copyright.gov, “Copyright exists automatically in an original work of authorship once it is fixed in a tangible medium, but a copyright owner can take steps to enhance the protection of copyright, the most important of which is registering the work.”In other words, copyright is a law that tik tik protects the expression of ideas in tangible form, but not the idea itself. Original works, like songs, are protected by copyright automatically from the moment they’re created. So, if you use a musician’s original song in your TikTok video without proper licensing or permission, you are likely committing copyright infringement. Keep in mind that music playing in the background from your radio or television is likely a violation of copyright law, too. Whether you did it intentionally or not is……