Where to find legal content to watch in Whatplay

5 min read

Whatplay comes empty. It’s a player, like the video player on your computer: it doesn’t include, sell or link to channels, movies or lists, and what you watch depends on what you add yourself. And there’s much more legal content out there than you might think: your own videos, works under open licenses, what broadcasters offer openly on their websites and what you already pay your TV provider for. Here’s how to make the most of each one and how to tell whether something is fine to watch.

1. Your own videos

The most obvious, and often the most overlooked: the videos on your phone, family recordings, trips, the classes or talks you recorded, whatever comes off your camera. They’re yours, and you can watch them wherever you like.

• The ones saved on your phone are in the Media tab (“Videos and music on your phone”), as soon as you give it permission to read them. You can also open a single file with “Open file”.
• The ones on your computer or a NAS can be watched with a folder shared over HTTP at home and a list. We explain it in how to watch videos from your computer or a NAS, which also shows you how to organize them with covers and folders.

2. Works under Creative Commons licenses

Creative Commons is a set of licenses with which an author allows others, in advance, to watch, copy or share their work, under certain conditions. The most common ones:

• CC BY: you can watch it, copy it, share it and even modify it, as long as you credit the author.
• CC BY-SA: the same, and whatever you make from it is shared under the same license.
• CC BY-NC: for non-commercial use only.
• CC BY-ND: it can be shared, but not modified.
• CC0: the author waives all the rights the law allows them to waive.

For watching at home, any of them will do. The conditions matter when you share the work, modify it or use it for commercial purposes.

The Blender Foundation’s open movies

An excellent example is the Blender Foundation’s open movies, made with Blender, the open-source animation software: Elephants Dream, Big Buck Bunny, Sintel and Tears of Steel, among others. They’re released under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, so all you need to do is credit their creators, and they’re widely used for testing players and TVs. You’ll find them on the Blender Studio website; check the license of each one on its page.

Other repositories with open licenses

Some repositories collect videos under open licenses and show each file’s license on its page, such as Wikimedia Commons or Internet Archive. Anyone can upload material to these sites, so the fact that something is there isn’t enough: check on each page what license it has and who published it.

3. Public domain works

A work enters the public domain when its copyright expires. From then on, anyone can watch, copy and distribute it. In the European Union, the general rule is that this happens seventy years after the author’s death, with exceptions: in Spain, for example, works by authors who died before December 1987 have a term of eighty years. A film has several authors, such as the director, the screenwriter or the composer of the music, so “it’s a very old film” isn’t enough to assume it’s in the public domain.

The safest bet is the collections published by film archives, libraries and other archives after checking the rights. Internet Archive, for example, has collections of old films and documentaries; as with everything else, check the status of each work. And remember that a restoration, a dub or new subtitles can have rights of their own even if the original work is in the public domain.

4. What broadcasters offer openly on their websites

Many TV channels and radio stations publish programs, news or their live broadcast on their own websites, open to anyone who visits. If a website offers a video like that, you can open it in Whatplay’s browser and, if the video has no DRM, watch it in the Whatplay player.

• Always go through the broadcaster’s official website, not through third-party pages that claim to rebroadcast its signal.
• Respect its terms of use. If something can only be watched from one country, that’s a condition of the service, and Whatplay isn’t a way around it.
• DRM-protected content can only be watched on the website itself or in the official app. We explain it in the Whatplay browser and DRM.

5. Your TV provider, under your contract

If you pay for a TV service, some providers let their customers watch it in other players, with your TV provider’s account details (server, username and password) or with a list of their own. If yours offers this, in Whatplay you add it in Lists › “Add list” › “Provider account”, and you’ll see whatever your contract includes, with its TV guide. Only do this with providers authorized to distribute that content in your country: Whatplay doesn’t sell or recommend providers. The help explains it in How do I add a provider account?

Warning signs

Be wary if someone who isn’t the official distributor offers you pay channels, movies or series for very little money, or for nothing at all, or sells you a “list” for an app. It’s most likely illegal and, very often, a scam: the service disappears, you lose your money and you’ve handed your details to the wrong people. Whatplay doesn’t sell lists and has no connection with anyone who does. To watch paid content, subscribe with whoever holds the rights.

How to check whether something is legal

1. Who publishes it? The author, the production company, the broadcaster or a recognized archive are good signs. An anonymous website isn’t.
2. What license does it have? Open works say so clearly, usually at the bottom of the page or on the file’s page.
3. Is it too good to be true? If a new release or a paid service shows up without payment on some random website, be wary.
4. Do you have a contract? If it’s paid content and you watch it through your provider, your contract says where and how you can watch it.