After various copyright battles, two of China’s biggest tech giants find common ground.
What Happened: Tencent Video and ByteDance-owned Douyin have announced a new phase of collaboration after a series of spats over Douyin platforms using Tencent’s copyrighted videos. Now, both parties have officially agreed to endorse content sharing, allowing Douyin app users to access Tencent’s popular TV dramas without infringing copyright.
Owned by ByteDance (which also owns TikTok), Douyin has 780 million users, while the ubiquitous Tencent-owned WeChat boasts 1.3 billion users worldwide. Tencent and ByteDance both top the charts as China’s largest tech companies in an industry that has faced grueling government clampdowns over the past few years.
The Jing Take: This is an interesting development in the battle of China’s video and live-streaming apps, which have become increasingly popular shopping and entertainment tools among Chinese consumers.
One of China’s Big Four tech companies (the others being Baidu, Alibaba and Xiaomi), Tencent leads the sector in terms of market cap and is also a big backer of Douyin’s rival, Kuaishou. Non-listed ByteDance has overseen the stratospheric and controversial rise of TikTok globally, as well as that of Douyin at home. Continue to read the full article here
