Streaming

Streaming has its limits. First, you don’t own the file (the video or the piece of music), so you can’t watch or listen when you want, and you can’t share it with your friends. All you have is the right to use and enjoy, no more. For videos, that is where it hits the hardest. If you look at one of the leading sites, Megavideo, the quality of the films is disappointing. And unless you are good at yoga, I would advise against watching a film via streaming, as you’ll be tying yourself in knots when it cuts out after 72 minutes in the middle of the action. OK, it’s free, but everything has its price, and you have to put up with endless advertising and regular breakdowns. If you want to watch a good quality film, you’d be better off subscribing to a direct download site such as MegaUpload. The other limit is a legal one. There is much controversy on the internet about streaming as it has its dark side: illegal streaming, in other words the streaming of illegally pirated works. Since the law protecting online copyright was passed in France, streaming, and especially illegal streaming, has increased to unprecedented levels. For the viewer, the risk, in theory, is slight. If the law has to go after anyone, it is the website broadcasting the video or the internet user who pirated the content and put it online. Someone who merely watches the video cannot be found guilty of infringement, because he did not download it and could not therefore have made a copy. So, if you download a pirated file on YouTube, in principle that is YouTube’s problem, bearing in mind that most of the files offered on their site are legal. But there are some websites, such as Megavideo, that are known to be less careful where piracy is concerned, and broadcast a lot of pirated files. If you stream one of their files, you are, in theory, taking a greater risk than you would on YouTube. You are supposed to realise that websites broadcasting as yet unseen episodes of your favourite series must be too good to be true.