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We know that there are a whole bunch of anime streaming websites that are in
fact illegal because they don't own the licenses to the anime they stream.

However, in a number of anime chat rooms/servers, one feature they announce is
streaming sessions through [rabb.it](https://www.rabb.it/), particularly (at
the time of writing this) if you go to the [animation
page](https://www.rabb.it/go/animation) you see _Case Closed_ , _Pokemon X/Y_
, _Assassination Classroom_ and _Naruto_.

Why is rabb.it allowed to stream anime? I don't think they have the licences
to those series.


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licensing streaming-sites
How is rabb.it allowed to stream anime?


I'm going to preface this with a note that I've just looked a little into
rabb.it's model, so my understanding will be imperfect. However, it looks like
it's built around a particular interpretation of the laws that allows for a
certain amount of wiggle room.

First off, it is definitely legal for you to get a few friends to come over to
your house and join you in watching, for example, My Hero Academia on
Crunchyroll. It is definitely _not_ legal for you to book a local cinema and
sell 100 tickets for people to watch you stream the same show on the big
screen. Somewhere between the two is a legal grey area that would earn two
teams of lawyers a decent amount of money to chart. So rabb.it offers what is
essentially a virtual version of the former - you can get about 20 people into
the room watching the show together and sharing the experience.

It also looks like they use a peer-to-peer client, which means that none of
the streamed content ever goes to _their_ server. This helps protect them from
the kind of issues Youtube has, although it's not a perfect protection (before
torrents, there were a few major P2P clients for sharing content that got shut
down because they weren't considered to be doing enough to protect against
sharing copyrighted files).

So the main things that allow rabb.it to do what it does (and this is based on
_interpretations_ of IP law, which mean that if taken to court with the right
judge and lawyers this could change):

  * Limited room sizes
  * No hosting of content
  * Requires someone to actually have an account on the streaming site
  * Live stream (not providing a download)

That's not to say that someone couldn't get around those things, but in doing
so they would probably be in violation of rabb.it's terms of service, although
I'm not sure what they would do in that instance. It's also not obvious (to
me) how they prevent people from using the service to get around geoblocking,
which could cause them some problems at some point.


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Based upon what I have seen browsing the website, the short answer is that
Rabbit is not _allowed_ to do it. I suspect that _they are trying to get away
with it_ for the same reasons YouTube gets away with hosting infringing
content: Internet service providers, such as webhosts, are protected by
D.M.C.A. safe harbor provisions codified into [U.S.C. Title 17
§512](https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#512).

These provisions exist so that webhosts and other such internet service
providers are not held liable for the infringing actions of end users without
their knowledge. The internet service provider is required to remove the
infringing content upon discovery, and document a procedure for removing any
infringing content at the copyright holder's request.

The reason I suspect this is based on [Rabbit's terms of
service](https://www.rabb.it/tos) which has specific provisions against using
the service for the hosting of infringing content, under section II. User
Content, subsection A. Non-infringing Content Sharing, which includes a
D.M.C.A. takedown notification procedure. Here are some especially noteworthy
excerpts:

> The Company Service offers Users the opportunity to share content with each
> other. Company encourages such sharing but prohibits copyright infringement
> or the infringement of other intellectual property rights through the
> Company Service.

> Content Removal Policy. We will respond to notices of alleged copyright
> infringement that comply with applicable law and are properly provided to
> us. If a rights holder believes that User Content has been copied in a way
> that constitutes copyright infringement, such rights holder or its agent or
> designee should provide our copyright agent with the following information
> in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act:

Notice that under [How Does Rabbit Work](https://letsrabbit.zendesk.com/hc/en-
us/articles/115003589767-How-does-Rabbit-work-) section of the F.A.Q. they
claim:

> Rabbit allows you to share content with friends, video and audio chat, and
> text chat within a Rabbit room. You can share content with a virtual browser
> (Rabbitcast) or by sharing a Chrome tab using our Share on Rabbit extension.

Basically, they seem to be claiming that since the users are sharing the
content, it is not their fault if their services are misused.

That much would probably be fine, but unfortunately for Rabbit, they are not
in perfect compliance with the law because [they are advertising their service
for the express purpose of sharing television shows and
movies](https://www.rabb.it/about) for which an end user is unlikely to own
distribution rights, so it could be construed that it is at their direction
that the infringement is taking place. If such is the case, then they are not
eligible for U.S.C. Title 17 §512 protection. Advertising services in such a
way is what got Grokester in trouble in [M.G.M. Studios, Inc v. Grokester,
Ltd.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studios,_Inc._v._Grokster,_Ltd.) I
would not count on this service lasting, or at least not how it is now, since
they seem to be liable for [contributory
infringement](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/contributory_infringement).


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