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I believe almost all of the people watching anime or reading manga get them
from various sites like watchop.com, Crunchyroll, anime44, etc., and similarly
for manga there are various sites. But are these episodes/chapters really free
of cost for the audience? I know that these companies have their major source
of income from merchandise and all other stuff but the episodes/chapters are
available on net so easily that too for free. Aren't there any copyright
violations? If there are why don't these anime/manga companies do something
about it?


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anime-production manga-production
Are anime episodes/manga chapters really free?


Yes, there are some legitimate websites on which you can read manga and watch
anime for free. [Crunchyroll](http://www.crunchyroll.com/) is one of them.
While Crunchyroll [started
out](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-03-11/video-site-with-
unauthorized-anime-gets-us$4m-venture) as a site that streamed anime without
licenses (i.e. illegally), they are now fully legitimate and above-board.

Of course, Crunchyroll has to pay for licenses for the anime they stream - the
producers over in Japan aren't just going to give it away for free. So how
does Crunchyroll make money? I don't claim to know Crunchyroll's business
model, but (as [this article](http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/21/crunchyroll-
expands-its-revenue-stream-by-selling-anime-related-merch/) points out), they
have venture funding, and they sell [premium
memberships](http://www.crunchyroll.com/premium_comparison), as well as
[anime-related merchandise](http://www.crunchyroll.com/store). They also show
ads to non-members. Lots of websites follow a business model in which users
get lots of functionality for free - for example, this one!

> Aren't there any copyright violations?

The other sites you mention - "watchop.com" and "anime44.com" do not appear to
be licensed purveyors of anime, so in their case, yes - they are probably
infringing on the copyright of the owners over in Japan. They presumably
aren't paying the licensors in Japan a dime, so it's not surprising that they
can (illegally) show anime for free. You probably shouldn't use those sites.

> If there are why don't these anime/manga companies do something about it?

Allow me to quote from Logan's answer [over
here](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/6472/1908) (emphasis added):

> I'll also point out that while fansubbers and scanalators are almost
> certainly legally in the wrong, the number of cases related to this is quite
> small. There are several reasons for this. **For one, the Japanese industry
> is built to sell merchandise in Japan, so they have little interest in
> prosecuting cases overseas.** The licensing industry, on the other hand, was
> built around an already extant culture of fansubbing, and so they've always
> just factored that in.

Also, if I'm remembering correctly (and please, do correct me if I'm wrong;
I'll try to dig up sources for this later), anime licensing deals are
typically a flat fee - the licensees outside Japan pay the licensors in Japan
a fixed amount in exchange for the right to stream the anime, or sell physical
copies, or whatever.

What this means is that the licensors don't care _how many_ times the anime is
streamed or sold or whatever - they've already got their share, and if piracy
reduces the number of people outside Japan that watch the anime on Crunchyroll
or whatever, oh well! It's not their problem at that point.


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Sometimes anime streaming is free, but mostly it is usually geographically
monitored. E.g. Hulu uses geographical blocking to stop people from other
countries and regions outside of the USA from streaming content.

The reason they have this is due to probably copyright issues. Sites like
anime44 are usually considered illegal sites, but because copyright varies of
many factors including location it is usually hard to shut down sites like
anime44.

As said in the comments they are usually free because sites such as
Crunchyrolls often get income from Premium Membership Users and
products/merchandise that they sell on there site including Koruko No Basket
figurines and much, much more. It is also most likely that they earn money
from clicks on ads, or on how many people view ads in between the animes that
you see for free. It is also likely that they might have sponsors too.

Edit: One thing that these site infringe on is:

> users are entitled to several protections of their own. A user is entitled
> to make a reproduction for personal use.

Unfortunatley there are some complications to this since if you are in a
country where Copyright laws arent the same or enforced then people can get
away with this, and if they are streaming it online to everyone one around the
world, then it isn't exactly for personal use then is it?


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