Sunsetting

[bytedream]

This project will be discontinued.
As of 14.03.2024, Crunchyroll removed support for non-DRM streams. This change effectively kills the project.

DRM (digital rights management) is a type of copy protection that many streaming providers use. The video is sent encrypted by Crunchyroll and the user's device then decrypts it. Only the provider of the DRM encrypted media (in this case Crunchyroll) is allowed to decrypt it. Therefore, I cannot continue operating this tool legally.
It's sad to see that yet another service went this way, but I guess that's just the way business works. It won't stop pirating. It won't stop copyright infringement. It might even lead to more illegal activity if the only option left for people to get their personal copy is file sharing or using actual illegal tools.

Besides the DRM stuff, I had little motivation left to continue developing the project in general. From that point of view, the DRM changeover was the death blow. As a single person, it was sometimes exhausting to maintain the project. On the one hand, users frequently requested new features and reported bugs, which made the codebase bigger and more complex, and on the other hand, working with the Crunchyroll isn't really enjoyable, there are just so many edgecases to pay attention to. In addition, I began working on other things that also require my time and attention.

But besides all this, I would like to thank everyone who contributed code, those who submitted enhancement requests and bug reports, those who have simply used the tool silently and those who have supported me in other ways. Without this user base, this project might have been discontinued way earlier.
It went from being just another side project to my biggest open-source project (so far), I gained much experience in the years developing it and met nice people along the way :)

---

Edit (for readers in the future): As stated in #362 (comment), the project discontinuation was delayed, but as of 16.08.2024 said DRM-free endpoint also got deactivated (see #438 for more information). It seems this is really the end.

[kerkmann]

RIP, was one of the best tools out there and I'll miss it. 😢

[Nannk]

Sad...

[port19x]

Another project dies to Digital Restrictions Management¹
Anyway, good job keeping this up for so long 🙏

[koo04]

Thank you for all the hard work and peaking my interest in using Rust for home projects. This was an awesome thing you did. I hope we get to see more of your work in other ways 💪🏻

[nyx-lyb3ra]

Oh no, this is really sad news :(

Thanks for all your effort on this tool, it was really nice to use. I hope you find new and better projects to work on :3

[dok1100]

It's a shame but I can understand it. I will miss your tool, it was simple and easy to use.
It was also the only one that converted the chapter perfectly, even if the function only came recently.

I wish you all the best, lots of luck, success and fun with your next projects :)

[3c7]

Thanks for your work @bytedream!

[GTM009]

Thank You Buddy!!

[wheynelau]

RIP I just chanced upon this last week

[ballenvironment]

Some other projects have remained up by asking user to provide their own keys. But understandable if you don't want to get into muddy waters with Sony. Take care

[bytedream]

Well there is one endpoint which still has DRM-free streams, I guess I still have a bit time until (finally) everything is DRM-only.
I'll suspend my discontinuation, as my left motivation wants me to keep the tool working as long as something DRM-free is available (although it's a bit cringe as my farewell message was a bit emotional heh). I will lock the issue until this endpoint is striked by DRM too and finally everything is DRM-only.