Streaming Services & Society

Celeste Tran, Roxie Miles, and January Carter


Infographics


Survey Results

Introduction

Our group is researching the effects of streaming services on society from a few different perspectives. We most closely want to investigate the prevalence of video piracy, especially in regards to the rise in popularity of Netflix and other online streaming services. Our main ideas are: firstly, why piracy is becoming more normalized in society, and secondly, the motives behind video pirating sites and servers. So far, our survey garnered about 52 answers.

Streaming Services

The majority of users have access to Amazon Prime Video and Netflix streaming services (62.5% and 85.4%, respectively), and a third of responders have Hulu. This indicates the frequency with which people chose to watch tv or movies online, as opposed to relying solely on movie theaters or cable television networks. 78.4% of people reported that before these platforms reached mainstream audiences, they had relied on their television providers for access to movies and television.

Before having access to digital streaming services, 51.8% of people reported watching for four or more hours each week, and only 17.2% reported watching for more than 9 hours. After having access to digital streaming services, 59.7% of respondents watched four or more hours of digital content a week, and 38.5% of respondents reported consuming 9 or more hours per week. This stark increase in the concentration of people that consumed television or movies can be partially attributed to the constant availability of similar movies, or sequential episodes online, as opposed to the tradition of needing to wait for other material to be available. This is concerning, because excessive media consumption has been shown to have detrimental health effects, and the accessibility of online content seems to be perpetuating those habits (“Emotional and Health Implications of Binge Watching Streaming TV,” 2018).

Watching Habits

Notably, the same survey-takers estimated that 76.9% of people watch four or more hours of media per day, which is far higher than the reported numbers. This could be indicative of a larger culture of people communicating about their media consumption habits, giving others the impression that they watch more than they actually do. These conversations could be generated by a social pressure to be “caught up on” the latest episode of a certain show, or centered around recently-released movies. This social aspect of media is also reflected in how 71.4% of responders usually choose what to watch based on the recommendations of their friends, rather than the recommendation algorithms of the streaming sites they use. However, as we sought to investigate in the following line of questioning, these motives could also lead someone to engage in piracy.

Piracy

71.4% of our survey-takers reported that they tend to watch Netflix alone, as opposed to 45% of people who usually illegally stream content alone. That the majority of people who legally stream content are alone and the majority of those streaming media illegally are with others could be a result of a sense of distributed accountability, or people feeling less guilty about criminal activity if others are also engaging alongside them. Significantly, only 80% of respondents report never having suffered negative repercussions (i.e. computer viruses, or legal action) for illegally accessing media content online, which could incentivize continued illegality. However, 70% of survey-takers reported that they preferred to watch Netflix, instead of pirating movies or television, and 57.1% preferred to watch movies in a theater, as opposed to at home. Therefore, although the resources to stream content online and access content illegally are expanding alongside technological advancements, the majority of people still prefer healthier and legal avenues of media consumption.

“Why is piracy becoming so normalized in society?”

Streaming services have become immensely successful in society -- but at a great cost. We have access to many services already (Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now, Spotify, Apple Music, Disney+, Apple TV+, Quibi, CrunchyRoll, the Criterion Channel, YouTube Red, Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Music, Tidal, CBS All Access, Crackle, Sling, PlayStation Vue, ESPN+... to name a few), and even more to come. With each service costing around $5 to $15 a month, paying for all of them would result in a price similar to a cable TV subscription -- exactly what customers wanted to avoid years ago!

However, people can get around the priciness by pirating their favorite movies and TV shows, usually from torrenting sites.

To start off, we’ll explain a few terms. BitTorrent is a communication protocol that allows users to quickly transmit and download data and files. Torrent files can be basically anything, from movies, songs, games, or applications. They are usually downloaded from more than one server at a time -- usually from seeds, or a user who provides files for peers to download. Trackers are provided in torrent files, holding IP lists of active seeds to download parts of the file from. Torrenting files isn’t illegal, unless you’re torrenting copyrighted material.

A torrenting site indexes torrent files, but doesn't hold the actual files. Instead, you download torrent files, and the trackers in it connect you to several seeds where you get pieces of the file and put them together. (In other words, you download “directions” to a file, rather than the actual file.) Government agents do look around torrent sites and networks, but very few people actually get caught. There are also multiple ways you can retain anonymity while torrenting files.

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