Why Aren't More People Using The Free Streaming Service Kanopy?

For those who have yet to avail themselves of Kanopy, a free streaming service (with a library card) that specializes in independent films and international cinema, here's a quick and handy guide on how the service works and whether it's worth it.

What Is Kanopy?

While it initially started as a DVD distributor in Australia in 2008, Kanopy later transformed into a streaming video service that offered large catalogs of movies to university libraries. The titles on Kanopy are primarily independent movies, documentaries, international films, as well as classic movies and shorts. And it's now currently one of the few places that house movies from the Criterion collection, that is, until Criterion launches its own streaming channel on April 8.

The platform started gaining more prominence in 2017 when it announced that it was partnering with 200 public libraries in the US and library cardholders are now able to watch Kanopy's 30,000 titles in its collection totally free of charge. 

Access to movies, however, isn't unlimited, and the amount of movies you can watch on Kanopy for free each month varies with each library. The monthly quota is somewhere between three to 20 movies, and as a user who registered for Kanopy using my New York Public Library account, I'm allowed 10 movies, or 10 "play credits," each month.

How Does It Work?

The process of signing up is pretty straightforward. One thing to keep in mind before you go set up an account is that it's best to check first to see whether or not your local or public library offers Kanopy. 

If it does, you can set up an account at the Kanopy homepage and then link your Kanopy account to the library you're a member of using your library card number and password.

Once that is done, you can then browse through Kanopy's collection of titles, which are curated into different themed sections like "Must-See Classic Film," "Current Affairs," "Popular World Cinema," "Directed by Women" as well as distributor-centric categories such as movies from Paramount and powerhouse indie distributor A24.

On the upper right corner of the page, Kanopy shows the play credits you're allowed each month. One thing that's more tricky about using the service is that once you start watching a title, you have three days to watch it. When those three days are up, you have to use up another play credit if you want to see it again.

If you find the credit quota to be limiting, one of the good things I recently discovered is that you can link multiple memberships to your Kanopy account. So since I'm a member of both the New York Public Library as well as Queens Library, I was able to connect both memberships to the account and get a total of 16 credits. That's quite a sweet deal, considering I get to watch 16 movies each month without spending a dime.

Is It Worth Joining The Service?

It might seem like an odd question at first, whether or not Kanopy is worth registering for, since the service is free. But considering how many VOD subscriptions most of us have currently tied ourselves to and how consumers are now suffering through subscription fatigue, the question is perhaps better phrased like this: is Kanopy worth your time?

The answer, I would say, largely depends on what sort of consumer you are and what you want from the platform. Unlike other streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime, Kanopy's offerings are decidedly more niche and targeted towards people who would be interested in seeing, for instance, Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" or Yorgos Lanthimos' breakout film, "Dogtooth," than, say, the latest Marvel movie. If you've ever been frustrated by the lack of streaming availability of a Criterion Collection film or an arthouse film, then I would say Kanopy is a great resource for you and you'd be missing out if you didn't join.

In my own usage of the service, I would say the three-day expiration date for play credits has been the more challenging aspect of my experience with Kanopy. It's probably less of a problem for people who prefer to watch their movies in one sitting, but since I like to watch things over a sustained period of time and limit my movie-watching to around half an hour every day, there have been a few instances where the play credits of the movies I was watching expired before I could finish.

The fact that Kanopy comes with a quota can be a good thing too, as it does force you to be more mindful of the choices you make when you stream a title and to be more vigilant about finishing them. Unlike other services such as Netflix, Kanopy isn't really a platform designed for binge-watching since there are only so many movies you can watch within a month. Instead, the viewing experience is more akin to borrowing a movie from a library, as writer Glenn Kenny has pointed out. There is a time limit to your consumption of the media, and, just like in the library, you're only allowed to check out a certain number of materials at once.

So if you're a person who already has a hard time juggling multiple VOD subscriptions and are not that much interested in watching movies like "8 1/2" and "Seven Samurai," then perhaps Kanopy isn't really for you as the Netflixes and Amazon Primes you're subscribed to can also supply you with a fair amount of documentaries and independent movies (though, of course, not to the extent of Kanopy). But if you're a user who hungers for more oddball, arcane offerings of cinema and who has been mourning the death of FilmStruck, WarnerMedia's indie and arthouse film streaming service, then Kanopy is probably the best — and for sure, cheapest — alternative out there right now.