▷Streaming: how does it work? 🥇

Streaming is a practical and fast broadcasting mode for listening or viewing your favorite content on the internet. As some works are protected by copyright, the use of streaming is sometimes qualified as illegal in certain cases. What is the difference between legal and illegal streaming from this point of view? How to legally listen or view streaming content?

Streaming: how does it work?

Using Streaming
Our video
What is streaming delivery?
Legal and illegal streaming from a copyright perspective
- Legal Streaming
- Illegal streaming
Where to host my videos?
Where can I legally listen to or view streaming content?
- web TV
- Web radio

Streaming is a system used for instant video playback, it is the same system used by sites dedicated to video such as YouTube. When watching a streaming video, the video is uploaded by the user to the server as a buffer (not stored directly on the hard drive, but on RAM). Once the video cache is large enough to play the video, it starts playing and the video downloads while the video is playing. Streaming can also be the playback of audio streams, as offered by web radio such as Deezer.

Using Streaming

Streaming has long been used on the web, and you may not know it, but it's ubiquitous. This is the system used by Youtube, Dailymotion and all the other sites that offer videos. Streaming is also an alternative to P2p with the arrival of Hadopi, which targets its efforts on peer to peer exchanges. Anyone can stream video to the web, which is a loophole that is widely exploited by hackers.

Our video

Loading your "FAQ: Streaming" video

What is streaming delivery?

Streaming is a method of broadcasting and playing content (sound, video) in a continuous stream, widely used on the Internet.

When a file is streamed, the data downloaded from a website is stored in the computer's RAM, then transferred very slowly to a media player, before being replaced by new data.

Streaming is opposed to "downloading files" which requires retrieving all of the data from a multimedia file before it can be listened to or watched.

Legal and illegal streaming from a copyright perspective

Legal Streaming

A great deal of multimedia content is protected by copyright, and is therefore theoretically only available in paid access. Some sites, through free or paid offers, allow you to legally acquire / read this content:

by downloading,
or by streaming (eg video on demand).

Illegal streaming

On the other hand, other sites and systems allow free access to this content by pirating their distribution and access. Streaming of this type of file is therefore illegal: the rights holders have not given their consent for their work to be made available in this way.

Where to host my videos?

YouTube
Dailymotion
Yahoo Video
Flixya
Blip tv

Where can I legally listen to or view streaming content?

On generalist video distribution platforms: YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, etc.
On some music streaming sites: Deezer, Spotify, etc.
On the website and on the various official social channels of the artists / record companies (YouTube channel, Myspace, Facebook, etc.)
On the websites of television channels (recent streaming programs): TF1 Replay, Notre paystv pluzz (channels of the Notre pays Télévision group), M6 Replay, etc.
On video on demand sites
On radio websites
On websites offering audio or video content under a Creative Commons license, or in the public domain.