Short answers, pulled from the story.
Streaming media is the delivery of multimedia data through a network for real-time playback, without requiring the user to download a complete file first. In downloading, the end user obtains the entire media file before playback begins; in streaming, a server sends the data as a continuous stream of packets that plays as it arrives.
Online streaming was initially popularized by RealNetworks and Microsoft in the 1990s. RealNetworks pioneered the Internet broadcast of a New York Yankees and Seattle Mariners baseball game in 1995, and also developed audio streaming technology. Starlight Networks pioneered live video streaming on Ethernet and via Internet Protocol.
Napster was a peer-to-peer file-sharing network launched in early 1999 in Hull, Massachusetts, developed by Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Parker, allowing users to upload and download MP3 files freely. It was shut down in 2001 after the Recording Industry Association of America and multiple record labels filed lawsuits for unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled on the 12th of February 2001 that Napster was liable for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement.
Streaming reversed a decade-long revenue collapse. US music revenue fell from $14.6 billion in 1999 to $6.3 billion in 2009 as piracy and free streaming eroded sales. By 2018, streaming revenue had surpassed traditional revenue streams including record sales, album sales, and downloads, and by 2023 global music streaming had reached 4 trillion streams, a 34 percent increase over the previous year.
The streaming wars refers to the era of intense competition among video streaming platforms that began in the late 2010s, involving services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, Paramount+, Apple TV, and Peacock. Competition intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic but was declared largely over by August 2022, when audience growth stalled and services began cutting budgets and introducing ad-supported tiers.
A 2019 study estimated that streaming music in the United States generated between 0.2 and 0.35 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year, higher than emissions from physical music formats in prior decades. A 2021 study found that turning off the camera during video calls could reduce greenhouse gas and water footprints by 96 percent, and switching from high-definition to standard-definition streaming could reduce emissions by 86 percent. A physical CD may be more environmentally friendly than streaming if played more than 27 times.