You don't need to licence something for copyright to take effect.
Copyright is held by someone the moment they create the piece of work.
The licences only gives people the right to publish the work in a certain market. If you don't have a licence they haven't said you can publish it.
Let me give an example
Company A creates a piece of anime called 'ExampleAnimeWork'
Company B approaches Company A and asks to licence 'exampleAnimeWork' in the US.
Company A agrees, and contracts are signed.
This is legal
However
Company C may see 'ExampleAnimeWork' and like it, they decide to do a 'fan-sub' based upon 'ExampleAnimeWork'. As they have no licence to distribute 'ExampleAnimeWork' or any derivative thereof, they are breaking the law.
The copyright holder 'Company A' has to explicitly allow another company 'Company B or 'Company C' to distribute it in an agreed market.
There is no legality in the defence 'The company haven't licensed it in this market yet so anyone can fan-sub it'. This is not how the law works. You'd have to approach the original company 'Company A' and explicitly ask for permission to distribute it in a region, or over the internet and pay royalties / fees as agreed in the contract between your company and the originators company.