Online streaming: a survey of online sharing and piracy

Abstract

Communication technologies have always sparked big debates about their possible effects on human life and the society. The excitement and the fear caused by the invention of television is one among many other such examples to this vivid interest. Today, similar discussions revolve around the widespread use of the internet and how the internet changed the world as we knew it while digitalization provides vast set of opportunities for online sharing. As online interactions and communications increased the dissemination of content and information, the borders between the processes of production and consumption became blurred. The control of culture industry over the copying and the dissemination of cultural products weakened. The on-going transformation instigated debates about the possibilities of theoretical and methodological re-conceptualization. Via the case study of the online streaming site WatchOnline.com, this thesis aims to survey, how the unauthorized circulation of the copyrighted content affect the existing perceptions of property and exchange, which, in turn, might give clues about the reactions to the present economic model. This research concludes that: 1-) Online streaming in this case does not oppose the existence of the culture industry for it is dependent on the culture industry’s production of the content and rather reacts to the monopolistic nature of the system; 2-) The site appears to incorporate both the elements of commercialization and sharing; and 3-) The practices of sharing contribute to the formation of community, which depicts solidarity, around the site.