Tencent Holdings and Douyin, the short video app operated by ByteDance, have reached a partnership agreement to explore the joint promotion of short and long videos after years of bitter copyright disputes.

Under the agreement, Tencent will authorize Douyin to distribute its video material and will make clear the copyright guidelines so users may make alterations and adaptations.

Users on platforms owned by ByteDance, such as Toutiao, Xigua Video, and Douyin, will be allowed to make short videos using the content in long videos on Tencent platforms.

Tencent, which backed rival short-video platform Kuaishou Technology, has long been displeased with certain Douyin users for exploiting long videos' copyrighted content without permission.

Tencent has filed numerous lawsuits against Douyin in recent years alleging unauthorized use of copyrighted content that belongs to Tencent.

In a battle for people’s screen time, Tencent Video is facing fierce competition not just from the industry’s peers, but also from short video apps like ByteDance’s Douyin and Kuaishou

The rise of short video and streaming platforms has intensified the battle of China’s online video market, Short video platform moved a further step into long form videos during Covid-19 pandemic when Chinese movie cinema chains remained shut down and news movies debuted online.

In order to defend their territory, a number of long-form video sites including Alibaba’s Youku, Tencent Video, Baidu’s iQIYI banded together August 2021 in a campaign, accusing short videos platform of violating copyright of films and TV shows through video clips uploaded by users.

However, the partnership puts an end to Tencent and Douyin's years-long legal fights over copyright as short-form video apps overtook streaming services in popularity.

With Douyin negotiating agreements with Chinese video streaming platforms Sohu, LeTV, and iQiyi, respectively, in the previous year, short video applications and streaming sites began to create cooperation on copyright concerns in 2022.