Free TV

Abstract

Circulation of television programs in file-sharing networks such as BitTorrent is one of the many developments in the era of media convergence prompting a renewal of television’s place in the popular imagination. Scholarly study of file-sharing tends to focus on movies and music, keeping TV marginal despite its heavy circulation in P2P networks. By considering its cultural implications as revealed in the discourses of P2P TV sharers, this essay’s aim is to understand TV file-sharing as one term in the negotiation of television’s value during the contemporary period. It is especially concerned with understanding the ethical theories of file-sharing participants. It situates these within the context of television’s shift from low, mass culture to a more legitimated status; from a freely accessible public good to a private good for which one must enter into terms of commercial exchange; and from a national/local form of culture to a global, cosmopolitan experience.

Keywords

television piracy globalization culture convergence cultural status p2p internet file-sharing

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Benkler

2006. The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Bjarkman

2004. To have and to hold: The video collector’s relationship with an ethereal medium. Television & New Media 5: 217-46.

Boddy

2004. New media and popular imagination: Launching radio, television, and digital media in the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ernesto, 2007a. Television studios embrace BitTorrent. TorrentFreak, August 7.

Ernesto. 2007b. Massive leak of pre-air TV shows: Piracy or promotion? TorrentFreak, July 24.

Ernesto. 2008a. 50% of all BitTorrent downloads are TV shows. TorrentFreak, February 14.

Ernesto. 2008b. Top 10 most pirated shows of 2008. TorrentFreak, December 23.

Ernesto. 2008c. MPAA demands $15 million from The Pirate Bay. TorrentFreak, August 5.

Ernesto. 2009. Top 10 most pirated TV shows on BitTorrent. TorrentFreak, April 11.

10.

Gillespie

2007. Wired shut: Copyright and the shape of digital culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

11.

Green

Jenkins

2009. The moral economy of Web 2.0. In Media industries: History, theory and method, edited by Holt

Perren

, 213-25. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

12.

Hills

2007. From the box in the corner to the box set on the shelf: TVIII and the cultural/textual valorizations of DVD. New Review of Film and Television Studies 5: 41-60.

13.

Jenkins

2008. Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide, rev. ed. New York: New York University Press.

14.

Jenkins

Domb Krauskopf

, with Green

2009. If it doesn’t spread it’s dead (part four): Thinking through the gift economy. Confessions of an Aca-Fan, February 18.

15.

Kompare

2006. Publishing flow: DVD box sets and the reconception of television. Television & New Media 7: 335-60.

16.

Koulikov

2010. Fighting the fan sub war: Conflicts between media rights holders and unauthorized creator/distributor networks. Transformative Works and Cultures 5.

17.

Kravitz

2009. Hollywood-funded study concludes piracy fosters terrorism. Wired.com, March 3.

18.

Leaver

2008. Watching Battlestar Galactica in Australia and the tyranny of digital distance. Media International Australia 126: 145-54.

19.

Lessig

2004. Free culture: The nature and future of creativity. New York: Penguin.

20.

Lessig

2008. Remix: Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy. New York: Penguin.

21.

Litman

2001. Digital copyright: Protecting intellectual property on the Internet. Amherst, NY: Prometheus.

22.

Newman

M. Z.

Levine

2011. Legitimating television: Media convergence and cultural status. New York: Routledge.

23.

Pesce

2005. Piracy is good? How Battlestar Galactica killed broadcast TV. Mindjack, May 13.

24.

Roetggers

2009. Is Hulu driving people back to piracy? NewTeeVee, February 21.

25.

Sarkeesian

2010. No girls allowed: File sharing culture and BitTorrent. Bitch Media blog Mad World, July 20.

26.

Song

2008. U.S. TV dramas hot in China. China Today, March.

27.

Spigel

1992. Make room for TV: Television and the family ideal in postwar America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

28.

Strangelove

2005. The empire of mind: Digital piracy and the anti-capitalist movement. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

29.

Stelter

Stone

2010. Successes (and some growing pains) at Hulu. New York Times, March 31.

30.

Tichi

1992. Electronic hearth: Creating an American television culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

31.

Vaidhyanathan

2001. Copyrights and copywrongs: The rise of intellectual property and how it threatens creativity. New York: New York University Press.

32.

Wagman

Urquhart

Forthcoming. This content is not available in your region: Geo-blocking culture in Canada. In Dynamic fair dealing: Creative Canadian culture online, edited by Coombe

Wershler-Henry

Zelinger

Toronto: University of Toronto Press.