social · ByteDance
You’re creating on TikTok, which means…
You own your videos under all three of TikTok’s contracts. What you sign away depends on where TikTok thinks you live — and only in Europe does the licence end when you delete your account.
TikTok gives you a different contract depending on where you are. This page reads all 3; every clause below says which one it comes from.
What they own
Nothing, in all three contracts — though they say it three different ways. Europe’s is the plainest: “We don’t own your content.” The American one says “you own Your Content.” The Rest of World version says you “still own the copyright in User Content sent to us…” Your videos stay yours everywhere.
What you own
The copyright. Every version’s licence is non-exclusive, so you can post the same video elsewhere, sell it, or license it — the European contract even spells that out for you: “this means you can still license your content to others”. What changes by region is whether you can also earn from it on TikTok, and whether you can ever take the licence back.
What you don’t
That depends on where you live, and that is the finding. In Europe, the licence ends: “Your licences to TikTok, our Affiliates and to users end when you close your account…” Nowhere else does. In the Rest of the World it is “irrevocable” and “perpetual”, and you additionally waive your rights of privacy and publicity and agree never to assert your moral rights. In the US it is “irrevocable” too, and the licence you hand every other user is “perpetual and irrevocable”.
What they can do with it
Copy it, adapt it, make derivative works of it and share it worldwide without paying you — under all three. In the US, also train AI on it: the licence covers “training, testing, and improving our machine learning models and algorithms”, and “Your Content” is defined to include what you type into TikTok’s AI features and what comes back. In the Rest of the World, they additionally take your “user name, image, voice, and likeness” on royalty-free terms and sell ads around your work while you “have no right to share in any such revenue, goodwill or value whatsoever.”
The clauses
What you grant in the Rest of the World
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.
The two hardest words
“Irrevocable” and “perpetual” both attach to TikTok’s own licence only here: the American version of that licence is irrevocable but not perpetual, and the European one is neither. There is no end date and no way to withdraw it — deleting the video, or the whole account, ends your copy and not their licence.
Fully transferable
TikTok can hand the entire licence to another company, which then holds it on the same terms. The clause never says “sub-licensable,” but it separately lets TikTok authorise other users and unnamed third parties to reproduce and adapt your video — the same result in longer words.
Your voice is on the list
The second paragraph is a separate grant, and it covers you rather than your work: user name, image, voice, and likeness. It is narrower than the content licence — royalty-free, but tied to identifying you as the source of your own content, and carrying none of the words perpetual, irrevocable, or transferable.
What you grant in the United States
Your Content also includes prompts, questions, files, and other types of information that you submit to our AI-powered interfaces (" Input ") together with the responses those interfaces generate (" Output "). … By creating, inputting, publishing, and otherwise providing Your Content on or to the Platform, you grant to TikTok USDS Joint Venture a license to use Your Content that is: non-exclusive, irrevocable, and royalty-free (you retain the rights to use Your Content elsewhere, although we don't owe you any payments for sharing Your Content with us) assignable and sub-licensable, including through multiple tiers…; and worldwide (so we can show your content to a global audience). Our license to use Your Content includes our rights to access, reproduce (e.g. to copy), distribute, share, download, adapt or make derivative works… for the purposes of operating, improving, and providing the Platform and developing new technologies (including training, testing, and improving our machine learning models and algorithms) … and subject to your Platform settings. Depending on your Platform usage, including your sharing activities and settings, you also grant to each user of the Platform a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual and irrevocable, worldwide license to use Your Content… in accordance with these Terms.
Training the models
This is the only one of the three contracts that mentions machine learning. The words “training,” “machine learning” and “models” appear nowhere in the Rest of World or European versions. In the US, the licence you grant expressly covers using your content to train TikTok’s AI.
Your prompts count as your content
“Your Content” is defined to include what you type into TikTok’s AI features and what those features return. Both fall inside the same licence, including the training purpose.
The harshest licence isn’t TikTok’s
TikTok’s own US licence is irrevocable but not perpetual. The licence you grant to every other user is both — “perpetual and irrevocable”. Read in order, the strongest words in the American contract attach to strangers, not to the company.
Deleting doesn’t end it
Section 5.1 lists Section 3.5 among the obligations that survive if you delete your account. The licence in this clause is one of the things that outlives the relationship.
What you grant in Europe — and when it ends
By creating, posting or otherwise making content available on the Platform, you grant to TikTok and our Affiliates a licence to use your content which is: non-exclusive (this means you can still license your content to others), royalty-free (this means we don’t pay you for this licence), transferable (this means we can give the rights you give us to someone else), sub-licensable (this means we can license your content to others…); and worldwide (this means the license applies anywhere in the world). … Your licences to TikTok, our Affiliates and to users end when you close your account or when you or we remove your content from the Platform in accordance with these Terms. However, due to the nature of the Platform and our legal obligations, the licence granted will continue after you have removed your content if:
you have allowed other users of the Platform to use or reuse your content via your Platform settings (e.g. by using Duet, Stitch, download or share functionalities); or
we are obliged to store or process your content for legal reasons.
The words that are missing
“Perpetual” and “irrevocable” appear zero times in the European contract. So do “moral rights,” “publicity,” “monetize,” “waive,” and “arbitration.” This is the same company, the same product, and a materially lighter grant.
A cancel button
This is the only sentence in any of the three documents that ends the licence. Close your account or remove the video and the grant to TikTok, its Affiliates and other users stops. Nothing equivalent exists in the American or Rest of World versions.
Two exceptions that matter
The ending is not total. If you let other users Duet, Stitch or download your video, or if TikTok must keep it for legal reasons, the licence survives your deletion. Those settings are worth checking before you post, not after.
Glossed in plain English
Europe’s version explains each word in brackets as it goes — “this means we can give the rights you give us to someone else”. The Rest of World version uses the same vocabulary and explains none of it.
The waiver that exists in only one of the three contracts
TikTok Terms of Service (Rest of World) — Section 7.B, Waiver of Rights to User Content ↗
By posting User Content to or through the Services, you waive any rights to prior inspection or approval of any marketing or promotional materials related to such User Content. You also waive any and all rights of privacy, publicity, or any other rights of a similar nature in connection with your User Content, or any portion thereof. To the extent any moral rights are not transferable or assignable, you hereby waive and agree never to assert any and all moral rights, or to support, maintain or permit any action based on any moral rights that you may have in or with respect to any User Content you Post to or through the Services.
Nowhere else
“Moral rights” appears three times in the Rest of World contract and zero times in the American and European ones. “Publicity” appears once here and nowhere else. If you are outside the US and Europe, you are signing something the other two are not asked to sign.
Moral rights
Moral rights are the right to be named as the author and to object to changes that distort your work. Here you waive them, agree never to assert them, and agree not to support anyone else’s action based on them.
Publicity rights
Publicity rights are what normally let you control commercial use of your name and face. The likeness grant earlier in this same section is narrow; this waiver of the underlying right is not.
Marketing you never see
You also give up any right to inspect or approve marketing and promotional material built around your content before it runs.
Outside America and Europe, you are barred from earning
TikTok Terms of Service (Rest of World) — Section 7.A, TikTok Content ↗
You acknowledge and agree that we may generate revenues, increase goodwill or otherwise increase our value from your use of the Services, including… through the sale of advertising, sponsorships, promotions, usage data and Gifts…, and except as specifically permitted by us in these Terms or in another agreement you enter into with us, you will have no right to share in any such revenue, goodwill or value whatsoever. You further acknowledge that, except as specifically permitted by us in these Terms or in another agreement you enter into with us, you (i) have no right to receive any income or other consideration from any User Content…… and (ii) are prohibited from exercising any rights to monetize or obtain consideration from any User Content within the Services or on any third party service (e.g., you cannot claim User Content that has been uploaded to a social media platform such as YouTube for monetization).
Only in this contract
“Monetize” appears twice in the Rest of World document and zero times in the American or European ones. Only here is the ban written down as a term you agree to.
It reaches off-platform
The prohibition is not limited to TikTok. The terms supply the example themselves: you cannot claim your own video for monetization once it is uploaded to another platform such as YouTube.
The carve-out
“except as specifically permitted by us” appears twice in this passage. Creator funds, Gifts and brand programmes are that exception — which makes the ability to earn a permission TikTok grants, not a right you hold.
India: excluded on page one, bound on page forty
(If you are not in the US, EEA, the United Kingdom, Switzerland or India) … India. If you are using our Services in India, the following additional terms apply. … User–Generated Content. You hereby irrevocably waive any right to raise any objection or other claim before any authority including any copyright board in relation to the rights granted and licensed to us under these Terms, including any right under the provisions of section 30A of the (Indian) Copyright Act, 1957 or other applicable law. The above waiver is granted by you in favour of TikTok and all of its group companies, affiliates and successors in title and interest, whether existing or in future.
The contradiction
The document opens by saying it does not apply to you if you are in India. It then carries a section of terms that apply only to users in India. Both sentences sit in the same file, and no separate Indian contract accompanies the American and European ones.
The strictest clause of the three
This waiver goes further than anything in the American or European contracts, or in the general body of this one. Section 30A of the Indian Copyright Act 1957 concerns an author’s ability to challenge assignments of their rights; here you agree in advance never to raise that challenge before any authority, including a copyright board.
It runs to successors
The waiver is granted not just to TikTok but to every group company, affiliate and successor in interest, “whether existing or in future.” It binds you to companies that do not exist yet.
The 3 agreements
Everywhere except the US, EEA, UK, Switzerland and India
United States
EEA, United Kingdom and Switzerland
Due Dilly reads the paperwork and reports what it says. This is not legal advice.