Chinese Streaming Site Bilibili Goes From Anime Pirate To Legit Business

Chinese anime streaming site: Bilibili is an anime pirate site like KissAnime.

Well, at least it WAS.

Bilibili started out just like KissAnime, or a better example being Crunchyroll.

Since 2009 Bilibili allowed anime fans to upload stolen content to its site. And the pirate site profited off it its piracy for more than a decade.

Similar to how KissAnime has been profiting off anime as a pirate for 10+ years.

Li Ni, the CEO of Bilibili landed her herself in hot water over the years running this pirate site.

Not surprising to anyone who’s aware of China’s system and laws.

So she made a YouTube style platform with private content to avoid trouble. Then moved into getting content creators to live stream to fans.

Fast forward to 2020 and Sony decided to pour over $400 million into Bilibili’s streaming platform.

Sony, the same company who’s also invested in Funimation and other companies.

It seems like streaming sites these days take this route because it’s the easiest.

I wouldn’t disagree. It takes a LOT of resources to start an anime streaming business.

Bilibili’S story does leave you with questions though.

KissAnime clearly has the resources. They have more traffic than Crunchyroll and Funimation combined.

I suppose turning KissAnime into a legal business, the way Bilibili did it would mean higher costs, more headache and expenses.

Plus the legalities and politics of anime licensing and region blocking.

But it’s still an interesting thought.

–