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AlexDDEr
AlexDDEr
Participant
November 10, 2018
Question

After Effects Web-server License (clarification needed)

  • November 10, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 2684 views

I totally understand that this question has been answered numerous time and remote automatic rendering (for example from client's images and text) is not allowed (due to earlier answers). BUT... do you know that there are a lot of web services exist which 100% uses AfterEffects for automatic rendering videos and sell them to clients?

Here are some of them:

1. Shakr and here you can see that they clearly tell us "Send us your Adobe After Effects project file and you and your teammates will have access to your private design on Shakr. ".

2. Dataclay (which also states clearly about After Effects projects on the page)

3. https://clipman.com/

First two - uses After Effects 100%. Numerous other services I know don't clearly state about AE but use it for sure as I can visually identify what video was made with AE.

So, do all those websites uses After Effects illegally? If so why do they even exist for so long?

If they are legal - then why do you tell everybody that this type of After Effects usage is not allowed? Can I have the same license from Adobe to run my own similar service?

I would really appreciate for answer from Adobe sales or management rep. about this topic, so I can be 100% sure than those services are illegal or I can do the same.

Thank you!

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    R
    Community Expert
    Rick GerardCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 10, 2018

    Adobe will license render farms. They have for years. If a company was stealing licenses to render Adobe projects they would likely be small, offshore, and caught fairly soon.

    There is actually no way to identify a visual effect or motion graphic came from After Effects. There are lots of compositing applications out there. Even Blender, a free and open source 3D app, can do some amazing composites. The only thing that I'm fairly certain of is that only After Effects or Premiere Pro can render Comps or Sequences and both need to be installed and licensed to render AEP or PRPROJ files. There are other apps that can utilize external rendering solutions like Blender, C4D, Maya, Fusion and a bunch of others.

    AlexDDEr
    AlexDDErAuthor
    Participant
    November 10, 2018

    Rick, thank you for reply!

    I do realize that After Effects is not the only one software which can do motion graphics.

    But I've mentioned in my question that first two services (Shakr and Dataclay) 100% use After Effects and they clearly say about it on their websites and blogs. Here is another link to Shakr blog post "How To Earn Money With Adobe After Effects" where you can see what render engine and templates they use on their service.

    While Dataclay somehow can be considered as render farm (users can upload their After Effects templates to render on cloud), does Shakr looks like render farm to you?

    Shakr looks like service I wanted to create 5 years ago when I asked the same question here and received negative answer. In a few words: users select template, upload images, set texts and Shakr renders the video for them in minutes, for money.

    So let's get back to my initial question:

    1. Do Shakr illegal? If yes - why does it still exist (more then 4 years now)? If no - where I can get the license to do the similar service? (for about 5 years I thought that "software as a service" is prohibited by Adobe and it's impossible)

    2. If Adobe allows commercial render farms as Dataclay - how do I get that license?

    Thank you.

    R
    Community Expert
    Rick GerardCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 10, 2018

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