

I am an experienced dev and my goal is to create an anime streaming site. I
have made a custom CMS in Python but now need the content. When making the
site, I soon realized that the content needs to be real and I don't know how
to get it.

I researched further into the field and saw that I need a license to buy
dubbed, subbed or anything related to anime. After seeing this, I brainstormed
and saw that it only said that to BUY anime it cost this much. A site named
Crunchyroll does this and earns money from subscription fees.

I changed my mind and thought I could make a non-profit anime site without a
license. Is this true? I'm not editing, changing or adding things to the
manga/anime and will not be earning any money off it.


CC BY-SA 4.0
2014-11-25T17:34:35.347
15294
2020-04-12T02:44:57.757
2020-04-12T02:44:57.757
2516
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question
copyright licensing streaming-sites
Do I need a license to make a non-profit anime streaming site?


Simply put: **Yes, you will need to license your content.**

Whether it is for-profit or free of charge, you are still dealing with
**copyrighted** content. If you want to distribute this copyrighted content
legally, you will need to license it. When doing this, make sure the license
terms actually allow this kind of distribution. Otherwise you are operating no
differently than other illegal distribution websites.

You may see plenty of websites similar to yours that don't seem to get
mentioned. Take this with a grain of salt, a lot of similar operations employ
various "tricks" to get around the law. Such tricks can involve hosting in a
country with more lax copyright laws. Just because you see such operations
doesn't mean your plans will go just as fine.

Of course, anything in the public domain is fine. There may be older shows
where the copyright has expired, so you can get away with publishing those.

However what you **don't** want to do is solely trust some random dude from
the internet. If you are seriously considering this kind of operation, then
**consult with a copyright lawyer**.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-11-25T17:42:08.500
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2014-11-25T17:42:08.500
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answer