TikTok is testing a tool that lets you stream directly from your PC

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

TikTok’s new tool, Live Studio, lets you upload your video game playing to TikTok‘s platform. Currently, the tool is in the testing phases, and only available “in a handful of Western markets for a few thousand users,” according to a statement TikTok gave to TechCrunch.

The app only runs on the Windows operating system and enables the creator to stream straight to TikTok. It features a chat for interacting with your viewers; and can stream games played on a phone, your computer, or a game console.

If that sounds suspiciously like the popular OBS Studio app, give yourself a cookie. The TikTok Live Studio app appears to be a direct fork of OBSProject, with the setup files still referencing OBSProject in various places.

Currently, TikTok‘s Live Studio doesn’t appear to be living up to the GNU General Public License v2.0 that OBS requires when its code is reused.

If so, that puts TikTok at risk of a lawsuit. Recently, a similar situation arose with TRUTH, the newest social media site associated with Donald Trump.

It had to acknowledge that they were reskinning another popular open-source software, Mastadon.

TikTok Live Studio is still in the testing phases; with no guarantee that your account can use the tool after you install it. That’s fine, this is a test after all, and TikTok is looking for data on how the tool is used.

If testing goes well, TikTok will have to fix its licensing issues before a wider roll-out.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• GETTR, the social app that looks like Twitter, will soon copy Instagram Reels and TikTok
• Meta might finally let a human help you get into your locked Facebook account
• Intel says the infrastructure the metaverse requires isn’t available to support it
• TikTok might owe you some cash for its $92 million lawsuit over data collection

Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.