Disney and TikTok Set Creator Clip Deal After Sora Talks Collapse

Disney is giving TikTok creators a licensed way to use clips from its films and subsidiaries, a move aimed at turning fan videos that might once have triggered copyright takedowns into approved short-form promotion.

BBC News reported that the deal will allow clips from franchises including Star Wars, Toy Story and the Marvel Cinematic Universe to appear in TikTok videos.

Those videos will also be shared on Verts, Disney's own short-form video platform.

The programme will launch first in the US before being rolled out to other countries.

Disney and TikTok did not disclose financial terms.

The agreement comes after Disney's planned $1bn (£745m) deal with OpenAI collapsed in March.

That deal would have allowed people to use Disney characters in AI-generated videos, but OpenAI shut down its Sora video generation tool, saying it had decided to focus on other parts of its business.

"Today, fans are celebrating our stories in entirely new ways," said Disney chief marketing and brand officer Asad Ayaz after the deal was announced.

Social media expert Matt Navarra described Disney's move as part of a wider shift in how Hollywood reaches audiences.

"Disney owns some of the world's biggest franchises but ownership of attention is shifting towards creators," he said.

"Hollywood used to market at fans - now it needs to give fans the raw materials to market with it, and that is quite a profound shift."

TikTok recorded an average of 6.5 million film and TV-related posts per day last year.

Fans already use clips from films and television shows in their videos, but without express permission those posts can be removed through copyright claims, making it harder for fan-created material around a release to spread widely.

The jointly run programme will boost some creators' videos and give them access to exclusive events.

The arrangement also makes TikTok a formal distribution partner to one of Hollywood's biggest studios, while its recommendation algorithm can influence which character, scene or older franchise becomes valuable again.

Gareth Sutcliffe of Enders Analysis said the deal "repositions and recovers Disney in the UGC [user-generated content] space following the content gap left by the sudden collapse of Sora." He also warned of "an ongoing safety debate around TikTok under European online rules."

Sutcliffe said: "At a minimum, Disney will need to employ significant guardrails to curate the creator content that is selected."

Disney launched Verts in the US in March, with plans to expand the short-form video platform around the world.