TikTok introduces option for creators to put videos behind paywall

Social media company ByteDance has introduced the Series feature for TikTok. This allows video makers to make series of up to eighty videos and offer them to their followers and viewers for a fee.

Video creators can set the price of their series themselves, says TikTok. Followers or viewers can find links to purchase a series on creators’ profile pages or as links in individual videos. The eighty videos have a maximum length of twenty minutes each, much longer than the usual videos on TikTok. The platform has grown with short videos of often ten or fifteen seconds.

The Series feature will gradually become available to creators who sign up for it in the coming months. It is unknown how the company will select which creators will and will not have access to the feature. The possibility for all makers to make Series will probably follow at a later date. A few weeks ago it was already rumored that the feature was coming.

TikTok already has multiple ways for creators to make money, including distributing ad revenue around videos from certain creators. The Chinese developer wants to turn TikTok into a platform where creators can earn money. Despite the many viewers, the earnings of many makers on the platform are still relatively limited.

The platform has been under fire for some time because Chinese employees have access to users’ private data. In the US, TikTok is therefore working to store data on Oracle servers under the supervision of Oracle. TikTok said last month that it will do the same in Europe, but it has not yet said which company it will partner with for that purpose. TIkTok calls that initiative ‘Project Clover’.