Commercial streaming platforms are subscription-based companies. Given their dependence on paid individual subscribers, they do not provide subscriptions to institutions like academic libraries. These companies may license and carry films from large and small studios. Often the streaming platform is one arm of the studio. The studios can license a hit film to more than one commercial streamer or television network and will often license films to our educational streamers.
Many also produce their own content, such as Netflix's documentary 13th (2016), directed by Ava DuVernay. This proprietary content is usually not licensed to educational streaming vendors like Swank nor to rival streamers like Amazon or Hulu. In the case of Netflix, it has made some of the content it owns freely available on it's YouTube channel.
Many streamers such as offer free trials that range from 7 days to 1 month and offer their regular services at a discounted rate after verification.
Amazon offers a 6-month trial for Prime Student. It includes the benefits of Amazon Prime and when the trial is ended, costs half the price of a regular Amazon Prime subscription.
You can buy or rent videos through Amazon. Many can be rented for less than $5.00. If students already subscribe to Amazon Prime, many films can be accessed for free. There is also special student pricing.
Disney+, like Hulu, Paramount and Max serves as a streaming platform for studio content and is based on personal subscriptions. Disney will license selected films to our educational vendors. They sometimes require our educational vendors to supply a description of how the film will be used in a course. In these cases you may be contacted by the library for a short description of how you are using the film.
Netflix is a commercial subscription service. A personal subscription is a contract and doesn't benefit from the Fair Use exception in copyright law. Netflix does make some of their documentaries available on their YouTube channel: Educational Documentaries | Netflix. You can also look up films to see if they have given permission for educational screenings of documentaries. You can search the Netflix Media Center for your film. If you see Grant of Permission or Educational Screenings Permission (ESP) on their details page, you may screen it in your class.