Douyin-Tencent Video Deal Shows How Big Tech’s ‘Walled Gardens’ Are Crumbling

What’s new: Users on Douyin, the Chinese cousin of TikTok, will soon be able to create and publish short videos based on Tencent’s copyrighted clips, a landmark change in a market where the internet giants once worked hard to close off their platforms to rivals’ users.

ByteDance Inc.-owned Douyin announced Friday that it has received a request from Tencent to connect the tech giant’s content service platform with its own platform, according to a Friday post (link in Chinese) by the short video app. Linking the two platforms will allow Douyin users to edit Tencent’s copyrighted films and TV shows to create their own videos.