As tech consumers we've been, well, conditioned to believe just about anything could be snuck into the lengthy and complicated terms and conditions we blindly accept. That old, quite graphic South Park episode comes to mind.
It tracks, then, that folks on TikTok are concerned about CapCut changing its terms of service (TOS). For the unaware, CapCut is a popular video editing tool owned by ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. It's sort of the default editing tool for TikTok, especially among creators who do all their own work. There were lots of posts about the CapCut terms of service change, but perhaps the most popular and complete post came from @bymilaholmes, embedded below. It's racked up more than seven million views on TikTok.
The TikTokker makes an interesting case that CapCut's new terms of service are especially onerous. The key points from the post claim: 1) CapCut gets licensing rights to all content uploaded on its platform, and 2) because you still own the copyright to your CapCut content, you can get in trouble if the company uses it inappropriately (e.g. playing a pop star's song without approval).
A quick glance at the new terms of service does reveal scary-sounding legalese like "perpetual, worldwide license."
But the concerns about CapCut's TOS may be overblown. To be clear, the language referenced by @bymilaholmes and others does exist. Here is a block of text about licenses (emphasis added) from CapCut's latest TOS, updated on June 12.
"Except as expressly provided otherwise in these Terms, you or the owner of your User Content still own the copyright and any other intellectual property rights in User Content submitted to us, but by submitting User Content via the Services, you acknowledge and agree that you allow us to upload such content to our server and hereby grant us and our affiliates, agents, services providers, partners and other connected third parties an unconditional, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully transferable (including sub-licensable), perpetual, worldwide license to use, modify, adapt, reproduce, make derivative works of, display, publish, transmit, distribute and/or store your User Content for providing the Services for you.
You further grant us and our affiliates, agents, services providers, partners and other connected third parties a royalty-free fully transferable (including sub-licensable), worldwide license to use your username, image and likeness to identify you as the source of any of your User Content, including for use in sponsored content."
That can read quite frightening. So...does CapCut really get access to your content in perpetuity? Well, kind of, but so do many platforms. And it's also not necessarily saying the company can take your content as its own — you still own that intellectual property. However, it would allow CapCut to use your content in an ad while crediting you, for example. You've probably seen ads like this, which feature users' posts as promotion. And that's because this sort of language doesn't seem to be exceptional.
Here's an interesting TikTok breaking down that fact via @seansvv, a creator mostly devoted to examining these sorts of fine-print questions.
Creator @seansvv's main claims are that: 1) not much changed in CapCut's TOS, 2) the licensing is for features like displaying and modifying content in the app, not stealing it, and 3) the licensing is not necessarily a new phenomenon.
Search around a bit, and you'll find that this type of licensing and intellectual property language isn't unique to CapCut. Here's a block of very similar legalese in TikTok's terms of service (emphasis added).
"You or the owner of your User Content still own the copyright in User Content sent to us, but by submitting User Content via the Services, you hereby grant us an unconditional irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully transferable, perpetual worldwide licence to use, modify, adapt, reproduce, make derivative works of, publish and/or transmit, and/or distribute and to authorise other users of the Services and other third-parties to view, access, use, download, modify, adapt, reproduce, make derivative works of, publish and/or transmit your User Content in any format and on any platform, either now known or hereinafter invented.
You further grant us a royalty-free license to use your user name, image, voice, and likeness to identify you as the source of any of your User Content; provided, however, that your ability to provide an image, voice, and likeness may be subject to limitations due to age restrictions."
And here is some similar text from Instagram's term of use (emphasis added):
"We do not claim ownership of your content that you post on or through the Service and you are free to share your content with anyone else, wherever you want. However, we need certain legal permissions from you (known as a “license”) to provide the Service. When you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights (like photos or videos) on or in connection with our Service, you hereby grant to us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content (consistent with your privacy and application settings)."
Nearly a decade ago, we here at Mashable wrote about a similar clause in Facebook's terms.
That doesn't mean users have to be thrilled about all the permissions they sign away when accepting terms from major platforms. And, to be clear, there is always the chance that CapCut or other platforms use these permissions in a way users find disagreeable. Copyright and terms of service agreements are complicated and often up to interpretation. But as @seanvv said in their TikTok: "It's kind of like the barrier of entry, or the trade-off, when it comes to being able to join the platform and actually make money off of it or grow a following."
Being active online does mean agreeing to terms we might not fully comprehend or giving away rather broad licensing rights. But that doesn't necessarily mean you have to immediately find a new, non-CapCut editing tool — though there may be alternative software that doesn't require those sorts of terms.
Mashable has reached out to ByteDance for comment on CapCut's new terms of service and will update this story if we receive a response.
