

Laws defining copyrighted material are complicated for Black creators: For starters, the law is broad when it comes to choreography. Part of the problem is there is no real recourse for those who want credit for their dances. I don’t really think gonna make a difference.” But as Sydnee McRae, a content creator on TikTok, puts it, “It’s never been a level playing field for Black and white creators. Vigilant TikTok users, meanwhile, have focused on adding “Dance Credit (DC)” or “Inspired By (IB)” in their video captions. y’all do the dance pls tag me 🙄 it’s my first dance on Tik tok and I don’t need nobody stealing/not crediting
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This included a page titled “Crediting Creators,” which outlined how to properly acknowledge originators of a trend, a TikTok for Black creators incubator program, an initiative to #SupportBlackBusinesses, and a partnership with MACRO to award $50,000 grants to 10 creators.
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In response to the complaints, TikTok took a series of steps to show support for Black creators. Nearly a year after the dance strike - in which a group of creators very openly refused to participate in viral dances - Black creators on TikTok still face challenges when it comes to getting their due. “Those feelings - that tension, that anger, that frustration - already existed.” So Louis made a video encapsulating what they were feeling: In the clip, he gets ready to dance, then abruptly sticks up two middle fingers as text pops up: “Sike! This app would be nothing without Black people.” “My video just ended up being the one that somehow became the face of this ‘dance strike,’” Louis says of that initial TikTok, which quickly amassed more than 500,000 views. Things came to a head when Megan Thee Stallion announced she was releasing a new song, “Thot Shit.” Her songs “Savage” and “Captain Hook” had spawned viral dance crazes that were copied and mimicked thousands of times over - and Black creators were worried it would happen again. Black creatives would share a dance, but it wouldn’t become a trend until a white creator - Addison Rae and Charli D’Amelio being two big examples - with a bigger platform performed it. Viral dance videos helped songs like Doja Cat’s “Say So” and Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” shoot up the pop charts, but the more those dances were copied, the less the people behind them were credited. By June 2021, Erick Louis was tired of seeing fellow Black creators on TikTok getting ripped off.
