


































Advances in Politics and Economics 
ISSN 2576-1382 (Print) ISSN 2576-1390 (Online) 

Vol. 5, No. 3, 2022 

www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape 

141 
 

Original Paper 

On Forms of Infringement and Protection of Short Video 

Advertising 

 YuTong Li
1
 

1
 School of humanities, Nanchang Vocational University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China 

 

Received: July 22, 2022       Accepted: August 27, 2022      Online Published: August 31, 2022 

doi:10.22158/ape.v5n3p141         URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/ape.v5n3p141 

  

Abstract  

Short video advertising is a type of short video that can generate direct commercial benefits. Short 

video advertising wins out in terms of content, and its broadcast volume grows rapidly. Especially with 

the development of Internet economy, with well-known short video bloggers using platforms to sell 

products, advertisements are gradually the same as short videos and appear more and more on short 

video platforms. Short video advertising itself has the characteristics of marketing, coupled with the 

characteristics of its length, fast transmission, in the era of Internet fragmentation is widely used as a 

way of entertainment for the masses, a variety of resulting copyright issues will also trigger wider 

attention from all walks of life. This paper uses inductive analysis to analyze the marketing strategy 

and infringement risk of short video advertising, and makes clear the copyright protection system of 

short video advertising, and promote the healthy and orderly development of short video advertising 

industry. 

Keywords 

Short video advertising, Infringement of advertising, platform 

 

1. Introduction 

According to a recent Insider Intelligence research forecast for TikTok, its full-year advertising revenue 

is likely to triple to $11 billion in 2022, which would make it bigger than its two biggest competitors, 

Twitter and Snapchat, combined. Since 2018, TikTok has experienced a huge growth spurt in user size, 

which has generated huge revenue for the company. 

As the short video platform of ByteDance, TikTok enjoys a high reputation among the video content 

consumption and creation platforms worldwide. Thanks to its oversea strategy, TikTok defeated Lasso 

and Zynn, the short video products of Facebook and Kuaishou, and set off a wave of short video in the 

United States and even the world. TikTok continues to grow rapidly around the world, with more than 



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500 million daily and 1.2 billion monthly active users in 150 countries and 75 languages. TikTok’s 

rapid growth has benefited from the revenue generated by short video ads, but short video ads have also 

raised a number of legal issues that need to be resolved before ByteDance can become more 

commercially viable. In terms of academic thought, this paper combines the academic thought of law 

discipline, information management discipline and software and other disciplines. The research on 

copyright protection of short video advertising is not limited to law. It is inevitable that there is 

limitations in short video advertising only from the legal point of view, and it should be treated with the 

academic thought of information management discipline and software. 

 

2. A Discussion of the Form of Infringement of Short Video Advertising and the Problem of 

Protection 

Short video ads are taking advantage of Internet technology to become popular around the world, 

copyright law is needed to interpret new technologies. (Denis de Freitas, 1983, p. 438) Compared with 

long videos, advertisements in the form of short videos occupy most people’s lives in a way of 

recreation and entertainment. Its marketing model fills the gap with traditional video advertising 

marketing and reshapes the commercial pattern of the Internet. With the rapid development of short 

video advertising, there are many infringements of short video advertising in reality, and bookstores 

also tended to consolidate. (Michael, 2008, p. 499) Which have caused serious damage to the legitimate 

rights and interests of short video users and are not conducive to the healthy development of short 

video industry. 

The underlying concern of copyright is with communication. At present, the research on short video 

advertising is mainly based on three perspectives: communication, economic management and law. Is 

different from the propagation perspective aims to provide theoretical basis for practice in the spread, it 

is also different from economics Angle to rely on short video advertising as a business promotion tool 

to obtain economic benefits, Angle of law aims at in the framework of the current laws and regulations, 

combined with short video advertising in the judicial practice, puts forward the legal protection of short 

video advertising. Copyright law has not disappeared with the evolution of technology and the 

development of a globalized IPR regime is recommended. (Siriginidi, 2003, p. 264) 

At present, based on the combination of communication, management, copyright law and advertising 

law, scholars have not systematically put forward the forms of infringement of short video 

advertisements and their legal protection measures. In practice, the frequent infringement of short video 

advertisements also endangers the healthy development of the short video industry. As product piracy 

has become more pervasive the international pressures to prevent this trend have intensified. The 

purpose of copyright is “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited 

Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries”. 

(George, 2013, p. 566) Therefore, the analysis of infringement forms of short video advertisements and 

the suggestion of legal protection are conducive to promoting the healthy and stable operation of short 



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video industry under the background of the Internet on the track of the rule of law. 

 

3. Types of Infringement in Short Video Advertising Practice 

With the explosive development of short video and live streaming industry, the broadcast volume of 

short video advertisements has always occupied the top spot, and its infringement phenomenon has 

emerged. Driven by the fan economy, producers of short video advertisements have little awareness of 

copyright or ignore copyright rules, which leads to increasingly rampant infringement in the short 

video industry and increasing legal disputes of short video advertisements. (Stuart, 1998, p. 185) 

3.1 Second Splicing Video 

In common law and civil law countries, the video originator shall enjoy the right to protect the integrity 

of his or her video, and the video shall not be distorted or tampered with by others. At present, it has 

become a normal phenomenon for users of short video platforms to arbitrarily process, edit, create and 

upload short video advertisements to major short video platforms to obtain traffic. The secondary 

splicing of short video ads mainly involves the following behaviors: (1) Cut and splice short video ads: 

Cut the highlights of short video ads to form a new short video AD, or even replace the advertising 

words or trademarks of previous videos by some technical means. (2) Mixed-cut short video 

advertising: Based on the promotion of a particular product, clips of several short video advertisements 

are edited into one video, so as implementation the purpose of the creator to promote a certain product. 

(3) Dubbing short video advertising: cut out some core content of short video advertising, and dub this 

part again to achieve the effect of product promotion. The above second Splicing Video creates the 

original work maliciously, destroys the integrity of the original work, increases the risk of negative 

evaluation of the original work from the social level, and infringes the copyright of the original author. 

3.2 Stealing Others’ Ideas 

As a kind of advertisement work, short video advertisement must contain advertisement creativity. 

Advertising designers creativity refers to the video works on video to express the theme, platform, user, 

must carry on the promotion of products after a series of analysis, using the works of the creative 

thinking of results, the results accord with the requirement of advertisers, achieved the purpose of 

product promotion, attract the attention of the user, can be called the soul of a short video advertising. 

In other words, advertising creativity only includes abstract and intangible ideas for the promotion of 

works, which still belong to the category of thought and cannot be perceived by users because it has not 

been expressed through material carriers such as videos. If the value of advertising creativity is to be 

realized, it should be reflected in various ways such as shooting videos. Short video ads are works that 

the creators release through the platform in the form of short videos upon the request of advertisers. 

Therefore, short video advertising is the result of advertising creativity from subjective to objective. 

Due to the particularity of the product, the availability of direct copying of short video advertisements 

is not high, so most infringers choose to copy other people’s ideas or other slang to attract consumers. 

Database collections of digital texts are inherently problematic in terms of infringement. The birth of 



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short video advertising generally needs to go through three stages: advertising content planning, 

advertising content planning execution, and the release of short video advertising works. The process is 

relatively complex, and each link embodies the intellectual achievements of the right holder, so it is 

easy to produce infringement in each stage of the formation of short video advertising. 

3.3 Covert Collection of Information 

There may be geographical limits to what an agency can or cannot do to pursue an IP infringement case, 

therefore, we should play the role of platform. (Sameer, 2007, p. 148) Each short video platform stores 

a large amount of user information in the background, forming a relatively complete database. 

According to the database, short video advertisers can screen the information browsed by users to get 

user preferences and make precise push. However, this kind of information is mostly collected without 

users’ knowledge, resulting in the violation of users’ personal information privacy. There are numerous 

users on TikTok platform, and their browsing history and shopping history will be stored in the 

database. Based on this, the background can conduct preference analysis on users, establish various 

related advertising models, and then continuously push advertisements that may be of interest to users, 

so as promotion products. Since it is illegal for short video platforms to collect users’ personal 

information, such covert information collection has violated users’ right to know. 

3.4 Forced Push by the Platform 

Short video platforms and all kinds of software have direct push mechanism and are not controlled by 

users. Forced push involves violation of users’ right to know, but it is difficult for users to fight against 

the platform. When a user registers an initial account on the short video platform, the page will 

generally pop out the relevant “informed agreement”, which requires the user to check. As an informed 

agreement, it is an important channel for users to understand the platform information, and a channel 

for enterprises to collect user information. Based on the “principle of informed consent” personal 

information processing rules, platforms need to sign an agreement with users to clarify the privacy 

policy before collecting and using user information. In the process of authorization, the simpler the text 

is formulated, the more thoroughly users understand, and the trust degree of the platform can also be 

improved. But the informed agreements for most platforms and software are long and complex, often 

more than 10,000 words long, making it difficult to take the time to read them carefully. After signing 

the agreement, the platform will push the short video advertisement. Although the word 

“advertisement” is indicated in some content, the short video advertisement usually has a story, even if 

the video has the purpose of product marketing, it is easy to induce users to think that they are viewing 

the video content instead of advertising. 

 

4. Countermeasures of Short Video Advertisement Protection 

4.1 Legal Departments Work Together to Play the Role of Rule of Law 

Copyright enforcement is a purely private matter within civil law. No government agency has a 

responsibility to check for potential copyright infringements. (Michael, 2004, p. 110) On the Internet 



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environment of advertising industry and platform, the purpose of the legislative department to intervene 

in it is not to restrict the development of short video advertising, but to protect the copyright system to 

achieve the best interests of all parties. The legislative department needs to improve the copyright 

protection system to bridge the conflict of interests between the originator and the pirate. At the same 

time, the legislative branch cooperate with various government departments, from the boot short video 

industry, promote the healthy development of the network, copyright protection works, to crack down 

on infringement, such as level, using a forward-looking, strategic legislation technology, in view of the 

practice of ads defining the difficulties and main body that difficult problem and combined with the 

characteristics of the Internet industry, formulate relative specific legal rules as far as possible. Many 

technology companies process vast amounts of data. (Artur, 2018, p. 254) These include online search 

engines, social networks, software-manufacturing companies, manufacturers of computer and mobile 

devices and providers of services available on the internet. From the perspective of law enforcement 

and supervision, relevant departments can also cooperate with Internet advertising agencies to adapt to 

the characteristics of the digital era and let Internet advertising agencies provide technical support to 

achieve the best effect of short video advertising protection. 

4.2 Users Should Enhance Their Awareness of Privacy Protection 

Innovative thinking and ideas are necessary, together with increased owner‐user co‐operation, if 

copyright is to survive. (Charles, 2000, p. 279) Short video platforms violate users’ rights by pushing 

ads to users without their knowledge, or by forcing users to watch for a certain amount of time before 

turning off the advertising. Because the short video platform collects user information very covertly, 

and the amount of money directly related to the user’s economic interests is small, the consequences 

caused by the infringement are easy to be ignored by the user. In addition, after the user applies for the 

rights protection of the concealed collection of information, the processing speed of the platform is 

relatively slow, and it is difficult to give a fair processing result in a short time. Therefore, the current 

short video users’ awareness of rights protection is still weak. In fact, the improvement of users’ 

awareness of rights protection will also lead to the reduction of infringements. Therefore, users should 

enhance their awareness of privacy protection, carefully read the informed agreement when registering 

an account on the platform, and timely protect their rights in case of infringement. At the same time, 

they should cooperate with the legal department to supervise the quality of short video advertisements, 

reduce the dissemination of vulgar works of short video advertisements, and maintain the stability of 

the order of the social platform. 

4.3 Clarify the Relevant Legal Liabilities of Short Video Platforms 

As product piracy has become more pervasive the international pressures to prevent this trend have 

intensified, the legal liability of short video platforms should be clarified. (Gael, 1994, p. 55) As one of 

many types of network service providers, network short video platform generally includes content 

service, access service and storage space service. Short video platform plays an indispensable role in 

short videos with different creation types and release channels, platform service is still the basic service 



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of short video platform, and has the function of information space storage. Network platforms can be 

divided into technology platform and content platform based on different perspectives. The platform 

provided by network technology provides technical support for works, and does not participate in the 

direct editing or processing of works. The network content platform is the dissemination of the 

provided works, which can directly or indirectly share the works themselves, and directly process or 

edit the works. The role played by the network technology platform is the technical supporter, and the 

role played by the network content platform is the disseminator. Most Internet service providers only 

exist as ordinary platforms, without the ability to review infringing content in advance, and there is no 

fault, but they should fulfill their obligation to delete after receiving the notice from the right holder. 

The emergence of electronic communications and the Internet is rapidly changing traditional marketing 

methods. (Michael, 2000, p. 259) The network technology platform only plays an auxiliary role in the 

dissemination of short video, while the content providing platform of short video advertisement is in a 

dominant position in the dissemination process. If the short video users participate in the uploading of 

the short video, they will also become the disseminators of the works. However, in terms of scope and 

degree, the participation of the users is low, and they can also be called “participants of the short video 

dissemination”. For short video platforms, their responsibilities are mainly as follows: 

(1) The imputation principle of short video platform. Only on the premise of stipulating the legal 

liability for infringement can the short video platform be subject to the corresponding legal constraints. 

The first is platform for providing short video content. In the communication process of short video ads, 

short video platforms play a more like “publisher”, whose job is to make short video ads open and 

visible to the public on the platform. The liability of publishers in common law countries is strict 

liability, that is to say, as long as the publishers publish infringing works, they will bear legal liability 

whether there is any fault or not. Therefore, according to the practice of European and American 

countries, short video platforms should also bear strict liability. In this case, the platform will take a 

more active attitude to protect the copyright of short video advertising. The second is short video 

technical support platform. Under the different choices of various users, the transmission range of the 

technical support platform is limited to the works selected by users, and there is no processing of the 

works themselves, which is equivalent to only acting as an intermediary in the whole process. In order 

to provide better service to users, the use of works by the platform will involve the “transfer” of the 

platform and the “cache” of the platform. In reality, the network technology platform can only provide 

very limited monitoring ability, and it is difficult for the technology platform to control the 

infringement behavior of others, and there is no very close relationship between it and the damage 

result. At present, the practice of most countries is to relax the responsibility of the technical support 

platform appropriately. Therefore, it is more appropriate to adopt the principle of presumptive liability 

for fault in practice. 

(2) The duty of care of short video platforms. According to the premise of the “haven” principle, the 

network service provider has performed the duty of care, and even if it has performed the duty of care, 



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but the subsequent infringement occurs, the provider will lose the qualification of exemption without 

taking certain measures. The purpose of setting duty of care is to achieve a balance of interests between 

the network platform and users, to achieve a good network order, and to encourage all subjects to 

maintain a certain degree of enthusiasm. However, different network platforms have different 

requirements for duty of care. The first is platform for providing short video content. When the short 

video platform screens different content for different users, it uses its own name, and the platform has 

completed the first round of screening before the content is released. In this case, it will be deemed that 

the platform has sufficient time and reason to identify the infringing part of the short video, and 

corresponding measures should be taken to prevent it. According to the business model of the short 

video platform, its focus is on the provision of content. Therefore, it should undertake the obligation of 

care at a higher level and actively and fully review the short video content to be uploaded. Current 

network technology is also constantly improving, content monitoring technology to achieve cost 

reduction, and has been recognized by the market. The duty of care of all short video communication 

platforms in the control of copyright infringement should be improved. The second is short video 

technical support platform. Since the network technical support platform only provides support for 

transmission and storage technologies and does not directly output content, it should assume a slightly 

lower duty of care than the platform providing short video content. Although it may increase the burden 

of proof of the obligee to a certain extent, the obligee also has more protection in terms of rights 

protection, which is more operable in reality than pursuing responsibility from the producers of 

infringing videos. However, as short videos have two infringing parties: the platform and the producer, 

the exemption of one party does not necessarily mean that the other party is also exempt. 

4.4 Construct the Protection Method of Short Video Advertisement Industry 

(1) Give play to the role of advertising industry organizations. The advertising industry organization is 

the product of the mature development of the advertising industry, generally in the relatively developed 

countries will have this kind of organization. With the help of its developed advertising industry, the 

United States has set up a special organization to examine the content and substance of advertising 

works, which will also help solve the copyright problems caused by advertising works. Some countries 

also have similar specialized organizations. When it comes to copyright infringement of short video ads, 

professional advertising industry organizations can help solve the problem more efficiently. 

The originality of advertising content should be compared among industries. For example, the 

advertising association is committed to providing various services for advertising practitioners and 

regulating the advertising industry. With the popularization of the Internet, people are exposed to all 

kinds of advertisements every day. At present, the service chain of advertising associations in many 

countries have been covered nationwide and widely recognized by the industry. With the development 

and expansion of the advertising industry, the scale of advertising industry organizations is also 

gradually expanding, and increasingly received attention. In the development of short video advertising 

and the road of legal supervision should constantly improve the management and standards of 



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advertising organizations, in order to manage more comprehensive. 

(2) Clarify the censorship obligations of publishers. The copyright laws of various countries do not 

provide complete protection for advertisement creativity. In most cases, short video advertisements will 

cause economic losses based on infringement, mainly because of the copying of the creator, but also 

because the advertisement publisher does not have the obligation to review. The review obligation of 

the advertisement publisher refers to the fact that is after received the short video advertisement, the 

short video platform publishes the work on the platform based on the commercial partnership between 

the two parties. The censorship obligation belongs to the short video platform. Before publishing the 

short video, the short video platform, as the publisher, should fulfill the obligation of reviewing the 

video in advance. With the rapid development of the Internet, the network information has also reached 

the maximum expansion. As the advertisement publisher and the information network service provider, 

the short video platform has the obligation to undertake the obligation of reviewing the works to be 

released. In today’s network environment, there is no way to talk about information security. The 

biggest problem is that the network information publisher has not fulfilled the obligation of review and 

supervision. Therefore, as the publisher of advertisements, it is very important to review short video 

advertisements. 

From the perspective of the advertising laws of various countries, the relevant behaviors of 

advertisement publishers are also constrained. For example, the examination obligation and 

examination method are stipulated, which require advertisement publishers to conduct certain 

examination on both the “quality” and the “quantity” of the advertising content. It is also necessary to 

refer to the basis of plagiarism standards and determine whether the content involved in the short video 

advertisement is infringing by referring to the elements of tort liability. If the short video advertisement 

is plagiarized due to the reason that the advertisement publisher fails to fulfill the review obligation, 

thus causing the original author and the advertiser to suffer losses, then the short video platform as the 

advertisement publisher shall bear the liability for compensation. If the platform party provides 

evidence to prove that it has fulfilled its review obligations, or for other reasons, the platform party 

itself is not at fault, in this case, the platform party as an advertisement publisher shall not be liable. As 

the last procedure for the dissemination of advertising works, advertising works will produce certain 

publicity effects after the publication, so the platform as the publisher bears very important 

responsibilities. The platform should assume the responsibility of the master and reduce the 

infringement of short video advertisements. 

(3) Improve the short video advertising works plagiarism identification procedures. In judicial practice, 

the lack of reference to clear provisions will make it difficult to form a unified and fixed trial process 

and trial standards, and different courts will produce different results according to different standards 

when trying cases. To improve the identification level of plagiarism procedure of advertising works can 

be more standardized in dealing with short video advertising infringement cases. In order to regulate 

the copyright infringement of short video advertisement, it is an effective measure to construct the short 



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video advertisement industry protection measures to protect the copyright of short video advertisement. 

 

5. Conclusion 

In the network era, various intelligent devices and entertainment industries are changing with each 

passing day. The arrival of the 5 G era has broken the space limitation of short video advertising 

applications. The emergence of short video ads also provides a new mode for people to shop. Short 

video ads not only have a high rate of return on investment, but also have a large business space and a 

variety of interactive forms, which are very suitable for users’ current dual needs of entertainment and 

shopping, thus attracting a large amount of capital to invest in them. However, short video advertising 

promotes economic growth, it also leads to the legal ambiguity and tension of copyright. As the types 

of infringement on the copyright of short video ads are very diverse and the ways of infringement are 

complex, how to protect short video ads is very important in practice. Based on the particularity of 

short video advertising, the legal departments should play the role of rule of law. Short video 

advertising users should also enhance their awareness of privacy protection, clarify the legal 

responsibilities related to short video platforms, and establish protection measures for the advertising 

industry, so as promotion the short video advertising industry to form an overall positive environment. 

With the extension of the short video industry chain, its value has been continuously accumulated. 

Therefore, building a healthy copyright environment in the future will be the top priority for the 

upgrading and development of the short video advertising industry. 

 

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