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In today's crisis conditions caused by military, financial, economic, social, environmental political upheavals and threats, the role of innovative technologies in trade is growing significantly. First of all, this applies to digital distribution in the book trade. Compared to traditional forms of trade, it does not require extensive infrastructure, large production facilities, or numerous staff. This helps to reduce transaction costs, respond more quickly to changing market conditions and simplify access to international trading platforms. However, the further development of digital distribution requires constant monitoring and analysis of global trends, and implementation of the best domestic and foreign practices to ensure efficient management of trading operations. The purpose of the study is to formulate the main financial and organizational measures to improve the management of digital distribution and increase its efficiency. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were solved: based on scientific publications and statistical data, the author monitored the trends in the development of digital distribution and the e-book market in Ukraine and in the world; analyzed the rank and level of visits to the websites of leading online e-book and audiobook stores in Ukraine; identified external and internal factors that affect the efficiency of digital distribution, in particular, e-books and audiobooks in the current conditions of military aggression and other risks; developed a model for generating revenue for a digital distribution platform. Financial, economic and organizational measures to improve the company's distribution management of digital content are proposed. These include areas of customer incentives and rewards, improved communication with digital goods manufacturers, priority funding for projects to improve the platform interface and mobile application, improved accounting, reporting, operational and strategic planning, and the introduction of artificial intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global exchange of goods and services is increasingly shifting online and onto digital platforms. This paper focuses on the analysis of the leading digital platforms as a "new phenomenon" that has become increasingly significant over the last decade. The main goal is to determine their strategy and success factors. Analysis, synthesis, comparison, mathematical and statistical methods were used. It was found that the success of the selected companies is based on a combination of outstanding skills in specific digital technologies, benefiting from network effects and marketing strategies that enhance their competitive advantage in markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 2022 saw three Scandinavian films – Loving Adults, Black Crab and Troll – place highly on Netflix's lists of the most popular non-English language films on the service globally. These were led by Troll, a Norwegian feature that was fully financed by Netflix itself and branded as an 'original' film, which went on to become the most popular non-English language film ever on the platform. Using the popularity of these films and other Nordic titles on the world's leading subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) platform as a point of departure, this article investigates the changing industrial landscape for film production and distribution in the region in light of the influence that streaming platforms are having therein. The focus is on a detailed case study of the integrated studio SF Studios, which produced two of these three landmark films as well as numerous others that were released as Netflix original movies between 2020 and 2023. In addition to illuminating the business and creative practices of both SF and Netflix, the article argues that deals such as these are fomenting greater artistic diversity in Scandinavia by opening up distribution pathways and production resources for popular genre films from the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's crisis conditions caused by military, financial, economic, social, environmental political upheavals and threats, the role of innovative technologies in trade is growing significantly. First of all, this applies to digital distribution in the book trade. Compared to traditional forms of trade, it does not require extensive infrastructure, large production facilities, or numerous staff. This helps to reduce transaction costs, respond more quickly to changing market conditions and simplify access to international trading platforms. However, the further development of digital distribution requires constant monitoring and analysis of global trends, and implementation of the best domestic and foreign practices to ensure efficient management of trading operations. The purpose of the study is to formulate the main financial and organizational measures to improve the management of digital distribution and increase its efficiency. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were solved: based on scientific publications and statistical data, the author monitored the trends in the development of digital distribution and the e-book market in Ukraine and in the world; analyzed the rank and level of visits to the websites of leading online e-book and audiobook stores in Ukraine; identified external and internal factors that affect the efficiency of digital distribution, in particular, e-books and audiobooks in the current conditions of military aggression and other risks; developed a model for generating revenue for a digital distribution platform. Financial, economic and organizational measures to improve the company's distribution management of digital content are proposed. These include areas of customer incentives and rewards, improved communication with digital goods manufacturers, priority funding for projects to improve the platform interface and mobile application, improved accounting, reporting, operational and strategic planning, and the introduction of artificial intelligence.

The research examines the functioning of e-book and audiobook aggregators in Ukraine’s modern publishing market. The development of e-books is crucial for the industry in conditions where the publication of printed material is significantly complicated or sometimes impossible due to war. Previous studies by M. Zhenchenko have already shed light on many aspects of digital distribution in Ukraine (2013, 2015, 2018), but the number of participants has significantly increased since then, which prompts the consideration of new market players. Aggregator services are the primary suppliers of e-books from various publishers. The research covers 23 such services operating as of the beginning of 2023, identifying common trends in their operations and reviewing the platforms they utilize. The aim of the study is to find and analyze data on active participants in digital distribution in Ukraine’s publishing market and identify common trends and principles of their work. To achieve this goal, general scientific research methods were employed, including observation, synthesis, analysis, and classification. The article provides data on the state and dynamics of the digital publication market in Ukraine. Its findings can serve as a source of information for future research and contribute to enhancing the user experience in purchasing e-books. The market for digital publications in Ukraine is gradually growing. The number of aggregator services and publishers that sell e-books has increased significantly over the past few years, and their technical capabilities allow users to access content on various offline and online devices. Within the framework of the study, general trends and principles of the functioning of digital publication aggregator services were revealed. Further research on the distribution of e-books and audiobooks will be updated with the appearance of new digital publication aggregator services and digital publishing projects in Ukraine in general, with the development of methods of access to digital content and payment.

In this study, we ask what drives the success or failure of various supply-side anti-piracy enforcement actions such as piracy website blocking. We do this in the context of three court-ordered events affecting consumers in the United Kingdom: We first study Internet Service Providers’ blocking of 53 video piracy sites in 2014 and of 19 piracy sites in 2013, and we then study the blocking of a single dominant site, “The Pirate Bay,” in 2012. We show that blocking 53 sites in 2014 caused treated users to decrease piracy and to increase their usage of legal subscription sites between 7% and 12%. It also caused an increase in new paid subscriptions. We find similar results for the blocking of 19 piracy sites in 2013. However, blocking a single site in 2012 caused no increase in usage of legal sites but instead caused users to increase visits to other unblocked piracy sites and VPN sites. We find evidence that increased search and learning costs associated with piracy drive the effectiveness of blocking multiple sites rather than just one primary site. This suggests that to increase legal IP use when faced with a dominant piracy channel, the optimal policy response must block multiple channels of access to pirated content, a distinction that the current literature has not made clear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The market of luxurious fashion brands is a challenging business area. It usually needs the right marketing strategy for its management. Luxury fashion brands face the challenge of how to balance the wider distribution, while at the same time confirming the peculiarity of their offer. The aim of this study is to analyse the specificity of luxury fashion brand distribution and its role in creating luxury fashion brand value. The specificity of physical and digital channels of luxury fashion brands distribution was analysed. The hypothesis was that luxury could be hardly emitted through digital distribution channels. By analysing the relevant literature and case studies, it was realised that in the market of luxury fashion brands there are exceptions to the strict rules established from the very beginnings of the luxury fashion industry. The distribution of brands with a long tradition and successful business results like Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Chanel were analysed. Luxury fashion brands successfully resist technological development by nurturing the tradition of exclusivity and unavailability. These can be marketed to some extent through digital distribution channels. The omnichannel distribution of luxury fashion brands is highly valued among the younger population. It gains greater market potential and therefore greater revenue.

This paper reports an extension of schema incongruity theory to a service form of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) distributed via a digital platform. According to this theory, an FMCG brand’s service form would be incongruent compared to its traditional form available via supermarkets. Based on the relevancy and expectancy dimensions, the level of incongruence for such a service was classed as moderately incongruent. The study used qualitative research to investigate whether the moderate incongruence appealed to modern-day customers. The findings revealed that a subscription to receive a regular supply of the FMCG test brand appealed to the respondents. The moderate incongruity employed in this study was of an optimal stimulation level, enabling respondents to see the added values offered. The values recognised included convenience, family bonding, health and variety. The study observed schema incongruity theory operating for the service form of the FMCG brand. As the study used a qualitative methodology, the findings are specific to the brand and context tested. However, the high interest observed suggests schema incongruity theory could serve as a framework for using a digital distribution system to market service forms of FMCG brands.

In a matter of decades, digital technologies have transformed the way we communicate with others, conduct business, produce goods and services, as well as the way we live, work, and spend our spare time. These, often rapid, developments hold a lot of promise for the future, in terms of wealth generation, technological advances, and improving the quality of life. At the same time, they also bring challenges associated with a lack of skills, new and fast‑emerging markets, consumer protection, industrial re‑organization, trust, security, and privacy. The private life of society, as well as the world of business, have moved to the virtual world. The transformation to e‑business is complex, and to be successful, a balance needs to be struck between strategy, a customized business model, the relevant processes, and the technology used. The aim of the article is to present the essence of digital distribution and the key factors in the dynamics of its development. Secondary data on the development of digital distribution in the world and in Europe over the past 20 years are presented, and the forecasts for the coming years are calculated.

Digital piracy challenges firms by reducing revenues and shifting consumption habits. Recently, some firms have successfully leveraged business models against piracy, but the understanding about this phenomenon still lacks depth and structure. This study examines the characteristics of digital piracy in some of the most affected industries; presents comparative case studies of two iconic firms, Spotify and Netflix; and analyzes their digital business model responses. This article then considers a generic digital content distributor and explains how business model responses contribute to generating and capturing value. Theoretical and practical implications for technological innovation, firm diversification, and network competition are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: Prior research has studied whether digitization shifts demand away from mass‐appeal blockbusters toward a "long tail" of existing products. We extend this work by studying whether digitization influences the products created. Using unique data on movies, we examine whether the reduced costs of production and new digital distribution channels spur producers to create products aimed at smaller audiences. We employ a flexible, transparent, and largely graphical empirical approach to document changes unfolding with digitization. We find growth in both intended blockbuster and long tail products, but also, the rise of a "middle tail," movies distributed via digital channels, with budgets suggesting commercial intent but well below the averages for theatrical distribution. The new middle tail is largely due to newcomers rather than major incumbents. Managerial Summary: Digitization has reduced the costs to create movies, while also enabling new distribution channels that avoid the high costs of theatrical distribution. With lower costs, movies no longer need to be "blockbusters" at the box office to be financially successful. In this article, we study whether digitization has spurred an increase in lower‐budget movies that are not aimed for release in theaters. We find that digitization has unleashed a large number of very low budget movies that attract little commercial attention (i.e., the "long tail"). However, we also find an increase in a new category of movies with budgets between $100,000 and $10 million, aimed at smaller audiences via new digital distribution channels. We show growth in this "middle tail" following digitization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports an extension of schema incongruity theory to a service form of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) distributed via a digital platform. According to this theory, an FMCG brand's service form would be incongruent compared to its traditional form available via supermarkets. Based on the relevancy and expectancy dimensions, the level of incongruence for such a service was classed as moderately incongruent. The study used qualitative research to investigate whether the moderate incongruence appealed to modern-day customers. The findings revealed that a subscription to receive a regular supply of the FMCG test brand appealed to the respondents. The moderate incongruity employed in this study was of an optimal stimulation level, enabling respondents to see the added values offered. The values recognised included convenience, family bonding, health and variety. The study observed schema incongruity theory operating for the service form of the FMCG brand. As the study used a qualitative methodology, the findings are specific to the brand and context tested. However, the high interest observed suggests schema incongruity theory could serve as a framework for using a digital distribution system to market service forms of FMCG brands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article traces the evolution of over-the-top (OTT) services in order to analyse how the growing use of Internet distribution influences the structural conditions and institutional arrangements in Denmark. This story is told in four parts: first, I outline how the shift from postal services to e-mail restructured the conditions for asynchronous one-to-one communication; second, I examine the introduction of web-based services and the declining role of the press as gatekeeper for asynchronous one-to-many communication; third, I focus on the impact of mobile broadband and smartphones on synchronous one-to-one communication and the telecommunications sector; and fourth, I analyse the emergence of streaming technologies and the reorganisation of synchronous one-to-many communication and broadcasting. Building on these examples, I argue that key welfare state principles have come under pressure and that research tends to underestimate the fundamental transformations of the institutional order.

This article charts the rise and fall of FilmStruck – Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Criterion Collection's cinema-specific streaming service. Despite its premier specialty film catalog (e.g., art-house, international, independent, and classic cinema) and loyal fans, WarnerMedia shuttered the service in 2018 – after two years in business. This article argues that FilmStruck's demise revealed the limitations of cinema-specific models and the precarious status of specialty cinema in the streaming sector. Specifically, this article analyzes FilmStruck's curation in relation to TCM and Criterion Collection's respective cable programming and physical media practices. Doing so reveals that FilmStruck's founders and professionals endeavored to reconfigure specialty cinema's meanings and reaffirm the values of film-oriented practices in the streaming context. Ultimately, by historically situating FilmStruck's trajectory and strategies within larger institutional contexts, this article illuminates modest, yet nonetheless important struggles over business models, cultural value, media specificity, and professional identities in the tumultuous 2010s-era streaming landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the consumption of audio music streaming? Many have speculated that the recent outbreak of COVID-19 has led to a surge in the use of online streaming services. However, this assumption has not been closely examined for music streaming services, the consumption patterns of which can be different from video streaming services. To provide insights into this question, we analyze Spotify's streaming data for the weekly top 200 songs for two years in 60 countries between June 2018 and May 2020, along with varying lockdown policies and detailed daily mobility information from Google. Empirical evidence shows that the COVID-19 outbreak significantly reduced music streaming consumption in many countries. We also find that countries with larger mobility decreases saw more notable downturns in streaming during the pandemic. Further, we reveal that the mobility effect was attributable to the complementarity of music consumption to other activities and likely to be transient rather than irreversible. Alternative mechanisms, such as unobservable Spotify-specific factors, a demand shift from top-selling songs to niche music, and supply-side effects, did not explain the decline in music consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Comparative Economic Research is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Amid technological convergence and the proliferation of new digital distribution methods, at-home fitness devices and fitness media have entered the cultural mainstream. However, fitness media companies like Peloton, Mirror, and Tonal, as quasi-television producers and distributors, have yet to be contextualized within critical media and cultural studies. Leveraging press coverage, interface and hardware analysis, and marketing paratexts, this paper turns to television's cultural and economic history to consider the continuities and changes concerning visual media's place within the domestic sphere and the economic conditions that have led fitness companies to venture into media production. Ultimately, this research concludes that home fitness technologies and their associated marketing work through long-held cultural anxieties regarding surveillance and technology with the home. This paper also updates critical theory to argue that these new media devices have oriented users as information-age consumers of digital products and have obfuscated data surveillance by anthropomorphizing digital spaces and making such products seem immaterial and innocuous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the contextual challenges that characterize the video on demand (VOD) market in Africa. It provides critical analysis of the creative strategies employed by Nigeria-based streaming services to navigate the peculiar business environment on the continent. This research is on the background of the poor Internet infrastructure and economic divides in many African countries including Nigeria. Streaming services operating in these markets must understand a context where Internet access is complicated on the levels of availability and/or affordability, including significant lack of confidence in e-payment facilities. All these, together with epileptic power supply and poor standard of living, indicate that streaming services must innovate to capture subscribers within the continent. Despite the harsh operational environment, streaming services in Nigeria have continued to increase in number within the past 5 years. This is attributed to the transnational reach of the streaming services as they are patronized by Africans in diaspora across the globe, while they also enjoy popularity within African countries. This article specifically focuses on the innovative strategies employed by Nigerian streaming services to operate within their African markets in the context of their peculiar challenges. In so doing, it extends extant scholarship about Internet-distributed video using the African context. This article is situated within the Media Industry Studies framework and draws from semi-structured interviews with 7 streaming executives in Nigeria and 10 creative professionals in the Nigerian Video Film Industry (Nollywood). It also relies on desk research of press reports, industry publications, as well as the interfaces of streaming portals. This article underscores the necessity of contextualized research with the digital turn in video distribution. Through contextualized analysis of VOD market realities in a less studied terrain like Africa, it aligns with scholarly call to expand theories of Internet-distributed video to marginal contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article attempts to present the entanglement of niche music in the digital distribution of sound. The 21st century was supposed to be the age of niches – in accordance with the concept of a “long tail”. How does niche music function in a situation of universal access, omnivorousness and culture of excess? Does the listener appreciate the possibility of using a huge musical base or does the lost listener try to use the indications of the algorithm; what are his preferences; is he listening to selected music (genre, performer)? Or perhaps, music is for him an uninterrupted stream of sound, treated in an incredibly functional way.

Using VUCAVU.com, an independent Canadian online streaming platform, as a case study, this project seeks to address the increasing need for digital solutions to access film and video art across classrooms and library databases in post-secondary institutions amidst the lack of scholarly attention and industry standards within the digital distribution landscape. Through survey and interview data collection, valuable insights from specialized perspectives in the sector, including instructors and librarians across Canada, outline specific prerequisites that must be implemented to offer a sustainable and desirable streaming option for post-secondary institutions. These research findings form a crucial underpinning for future technological developments across emerging, independent streaming platforms, alongside continued consultation and support from the academic community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since his first trip to India in 1975, Richard Charkin has been associated with Indian publishing, particularly the trade segment, in various ways. A vibrant and multidimensional market with possibly the biggest potential for growth, India supports a healthy mix of conglomerate and independent publishers who benefit from a world-class literary community, professional workforce and the best IT brains around. There are also a clear set of challenges and roadblocks that have kept India a relative minnow internationally. Digital distribution will continue to grow as a percentage of the total market. Going ahead, the market will be fuelled not by international companies but by Indian businesses that shed legacy ways of operating and with strong financial investment from Indian funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article traces the evolution of over-the-top (OTT) services in order to analyse how the growing use of Internet distribution influences the structural conditions and institutional arrangements in Denmark. This story is told in four parts: first, I outline how the shift from postal services to e-mail restructured the conditions for asynchronous one-to-one communication; second, I examine the introduction of web-based services and the declining role of the press as gatekeeper for asynchronous one-to-many communication; third, I focus on the impact of mobile broadband and smartphones on synchronous one-to-one communication and the telecommunications sector; and fourth, I analyse the emergence of streaming technologies and the reorganisation of synchronous one-to-many communication and broadcasting. Building on these examples, I argue that key welfare state principles have come under pressure and that research tends to underestimate the fundamental transformations of the institutional order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos.info is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Facultad de Comunicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article tackles the evolution of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation international distribution strategies at the intersection of the contemporary television landscape, by providing a context and definition for Canadian content (CanCon) rules, so as to consider more recent debates on the positioning of foreign streaming services in Canada in relation to existing broadcasting companies. The aim is to problematize media policies, by outlining the present state of the debate and updating the conversation to include global streaming TV players. Key questions are explored, such as whether CanCon rules are outdated forms of cultural protectionism or still represent viable answers to the risks of media imperialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study explores how a development on the fringes of the sports-media complex necessitates a critical political economy framework and concerns not only television but also ownership structures outside of "big media." Specifically, it investigates the relationship between fitness giant CrossFit Inc. and its legacy distribution partners and the industry trends that led it to abandon dominant media in 2019, when it provided a free, open-source feed of its annual CrossFit Games to independent producers. Combining discourse analysis with a multilevel institutional perspective, this essay suggests that critical political economy is not an empty, top-down framework but is instead a holistic approach that meaningfully considers issues of culture and praxis. By demonstrating how an obscure private corporation with an idiosyncratic libertarian CEO wrestled control from incumbent media, this case study considers how nonmainstream financing structures may affect the production and consumption of cultural products. On a structural level, it also problematizes the totalizing notion of media conglomeration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Essay I argue that the basic case for property is still a very strong one. Individual control over individual assets still makes sense. I defend property rights in digital creations in the face of two general scholarly critiques: The first is what I call digital determinism -- the idea that the central driving force behind IP policy should be the technological imperatives of digital creation and distribution. I argue that the inherent logic of digital technology should not drive IP policy. Second, I discuss the idea that the distinctive feature of digital technology, and therefore the thing that policy should most seek to encourage, is collective creativity. I argue that individual creators are still crucial, and that IP law does not interfere with widely dispersed collective works such as Wikis. Finally, I push for recognition that IP policy should not be blinded by the promise of massive amounts of amateur content; solicitude for what I call "creative professionals" -- people who make a living creating high-quality content -- has been and must continue to be an important part of IP law.

Fueled by digital distribution, unbundling is prevalent in many information and entertainment industries. What is the effect of this unbundling on sales, and what bundle characteristics drive this effect? The author empirically examines these questions in the context of the music industry, using data on weekly digital-track, digital-album, and physical-album sales from January 2005 to April 2007 for all titles released by a sample of more than 200 artists. The modeling framework, a system of an “album-sales” and a “song-sales” equation estimated with the seemingly unrelated regression method, explicitly accounts for the interaction between sales for the bundle and its components. The findings reveal that revenues decrease significantly as digital downloading becomes more prevalent, but the number of items included in a bundle (a measure of its “objective” value) is not a significant moderator of this effect. Instead, bundles with items that are more equal in their appeal and bundles offered by producers with a strong reputation suffer less from the negative impact of the shift to mixed bundling in online channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Illegal consumer file sharing of motion pictures is considered a major threat to the movie industry. Whereas industry advocates and some scholars postulate a cannibalistic effect on commercial forms of movie consumption, other researchers deny this effect, though sound evidence is lacking on both sides. Drawing on extant research and utility theory, the authors present hypotheses on the consequences and determinants of consumer file sharing and test them with data from a controlled longitudinal panel study of German consumers. The data contain information on the consumers' intentions toward and actual behavior in relation to the consumption of 25 new motion pictures, allowing the authors to study more than 10,000 individual file-sharing opportunities. The authors test the effect of file sharing on commercial movie consumption using a series of ReLogit regression analyses and apply partial least squares structural equation modeling to identify the determinants of consumer file sharing. They find evidence of substantial cannibalization of theater visits, DVD rentals, and DVD purchases responsible for annual revenue losses of $300 million in Germany. Five categories of file-sharing behavior drive file sharing and have a significant impact on how consumers obtain and watch illegal movie copies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In music streaming services like Spotify, discrete pieces of music no longer has a price, as has traditionally been the case in music retailing, both analog and digital. This article discusses the theoretical and practical implications of this shift towards subscriptions, starting from a critical review of recent literature dealing with the commodification of music. The findings have a relevance that is not limited to music or digital media, but also apply more broadly on the study of commodification. At the theoretical level, the article compares two ways of defining the commodity, one structural (Marx), one situational (Appadurai, Kopytoff), arguing for the necessity of a theory that can distinguish commodities from all that which is not (yet) commodified. This is demonstrated by taking Spotify as a case, arguing that it does not sell millions of different commodities to its users, but only one: the subscription itself. This has broad economic and cultural implications, of which four are highlighted: (1) The user of Spotify has no economic incentive to limit music listening, because the price of a subscription is the same regardless of the quantity of music consumed. (2) For the same reason, Spotify as a company cannot raise its revenues by making existing customers consume more of the product, but only by raising the number of subscribers, or by raising the price of a subscription. (3) Within platforms like Spotify, it is not possible to use differential pricing of musical recordings, as has traditionally been the case in music retail. Accordingly, record companies or independent artists hence can no longer compete for listeners by offering their music at a discount. (4) Within the circuit of capital. Spotify may actually be better understood as a commodity producer than as a distributor, implying a less symbiotic relationship to the recorded music industry.

This essay examines the distribution of content in the global market and how it has become imbricated with “cloud policy” — through online platforms, remote data storage, and the patchwork of international laws, Terms of Service agreements, and policies currently regulating the 1s and 0s being stored and streamed as digital media. Distributing and protecting digital data as it travels all over the world poses challenges that often defy legal paradigms, national boundaries, and traditional geographies of control. Moreover, the incursion of platforms and other “intermediaries” into the digital distribution landscape has created challenges for everyone from tech companies and theater owners to regulators and audiences. Looking at some of the industrial, cultural, and political dynamics connecting the governance of data with the shifting realities of digital distribution, I will address the growing “data troubles” faced by the media industries and relate them to the growing stakes for the futures of culture, information, and citizenship in the platform era.

The article analyzes the concept of distribution. The main objects of the distribution system - the manufacturer, the wholesale reseller, the retail reseller and the user - are identified and characterized. The article highlights the benefits of digital distribution over traditional distribution. The article analyzes the features of digital distribution in the areas of books, music, software and computer games. The article examines the genesis, evolution, and perspective of digital distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its birth in the 1930s tarling music recordings have undergone many changes, depending on technological developments. Starting from recording types of vinyl, cassette tapes to Compact Disk technology. In fact, along with digital technology the production of tarling music recordings can be done indie in the form of document files. The process of digitizing tarling music production is also inseparable from the weak regulation of copyright, so that the results of massive tarling music production can spread through cyberspace. This qualitative study uses the Historical Materialism paradigm by analyzing how Tarling's music undergoes transformation, distribution and consumption. As a result, the tactic of digitalization has contributed greatly to the changing transformation of Tarling's music. The phenomenon of network society also forces the role of the agents behind Tarling's music to contest by using digital production and marketing strategies through Youtube accounts that are disseminated through social media channels. Digital technology has revived tarling music, which was originally a classic-music that is almost extinct, is now able to stand side by side and even collaborate with various other popular music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the evolution of video game updates and patches from a mechanism of customer support to a tool of control over the way games are played in the ecosystem of digital gaming platforms. It charts a historical trajectory across various cultural industries, including literary publishing, screen industries, and music, to show a shift from multiplicity of editions to one perpetually updated contingent commodity. Focusing on the issues of power and control enabled by the always-online platforms, the analysis shows that previously updating was often voluntary. However, now players must actively resist patches if they wish to play the game on their own terms. As illustrated by three case studies of update resistance, developers, publishers, and platform holders wield protocological power, which can be successfully opposed—although the outcome often remains localized and tends to alter a specific iteration of protocol and not the underlying infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nigerian film industry, often referred to as Nollywood, is currently experiencing significant transformations in its mode of production and distribution. These far-reaching transformations are driven by tech-savvy Nigerian film-makers who are willing to consider innovative models in the film-making practice – from crowdfunding to content distribution via online platforms – in their effort to become relevant in the changing digital global marketplace. Drawing on pertinent case studies and in-depth interviews with stakeholders in the Nigerian film industry, this article suggests that advances in digital technologies, such as the Internet and digital media, are creating new ways for new-generation film-makers in Nigeria to fund and circulate their creative work to a vast global audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although 'streaming' media has become increasingly common across multiple media industries, significant differences underpin the industrial practices that allow this behavior and explain discrepant experiences of internet distribution across industries. This article uses collaborative comparative media industry analysis to investigate the commonalities and variations among streaming in the US music, film, and television industries to assess the viability of theorizing the cultural implications of streaming as a consistent phenomenon across media industries. The article explores the consistencies and divergences of streaming among consumer experience, business practices, and textual implications to compare how established uses, production practices, and media content have been affected by internet distribution. Such detailed industry comparison is a novel approach, and the article also considers the methodological value of rigorous collaboration among scholars expert in different media industries. The analysis is based on industry data and practices obtained through trade press, industry reports, and interviews with media workers consistent with a critical media industries approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a digital pseudo-differential operator acting in discrete Sobolev--Slobodetskii spaces and consider pseudo-differential equations with such operators in a discrete half-space. The theorem on a general solution of such equations is proved for a special case.

The article considers tendencies of forming the Russian book market of digital distribution in the 1990s - early XXI century. It identifies and describes main distribution channels of electronic publishing; marks forecasts of the market further development to promote the electronic content.