[2] Content distributed online may be streamed or downloaded, and often consists of books, films and television programs, music, software, and video games.
In contrast, fully downloading content to a hard drive or other forms of storage media may allow offline access in the future.
In Britain, the iPlayer, a software application for streaming television and radio, accounts for 5% of all bandwidth used in the United Kingdom.
[8] Lossless FLAC files can be up to six times larger than an MP3 while,[9] in comparison, the same song might require 30–40 megabytes of storage on a CD.
[citation needed] In the past, some emerging artists have struggled to find a way to market themselves and compete in the various distribution channels.
[citation needed] The Internet may give artists more control over their music in terms of ownership, rights, creative process, pricing, and more.
Some companies, such as Bookmasters Distribution, which invested US$4.5 million in upgrading its equipment and operating systems, have had to direct capital toward keeping up with the changes in technology.
One benefit of electronic book readers is that they allow users to access additional content via hypertext links.
[16] One year later the publisher stated that they will keep this model as removing DRM was not hurting their digital distribution ebook business.
[17] Smaller e-book publishers such as O'Reilly Media, Carina Press[18] and Baen Books had already forgone DRM previously.
On Steam [a digital distributor] there's no shelf-space restriction.Since the 2000s, there has been an increasing number of smaller and niche titles available and commercially successful, e.g. remakes of classic games.
[citation needed] The protective cases for an optical disc is made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a known carcinogen.