Loading...
"A Sea of Red Ink and Broken Dreams": Copyright, Gatekeeping, and the Curtailing of Creativity and Creators' Rights in the Age of Streaming
Citations
Altmetric:
Genre
Thesis/Dissertation
Date
2025-05
Advisor
Committee member
Group
Department
Media Studies & Production
Permanent link to this record
Collections
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
DOI
https://doi.org/10.34944/4awr-zg71
Abstract
In May of 2023, members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild of America (SAG-AFTRA) went on strike to protest unfair labor practices after a breakdown in contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). From the picket line to social media, creators decried the reduction of wages in terms of minimums and residuals, the shrinking of writers’ rooms, and the proliferation of AI in Hollywood. The strikes took social media by storm, causing audiences and creators to weigh in on the matter. Discourses ranged from support for creators and outrage at their plight to capitalism’s stifling and censorship of creativity to the purpose of intellectual property in the context of AI. In the midst of these fevered discourses, the WGA published an article in which they called media corporations such as Netflix and Disney the “New Gatekeepers”, citing their power and influence in terms of setting employment and labor standards and hoarding of intellectual property. With this article as a launching point, this thesis explored how copyright law facilitates the economic, ethical, and creative conflicts between creators, media conglomerates, and audiences in the context of streaming services. To that end, a discourse analysis was conducted, analyzing 100 social media posts across Twitter (formerly known as X), Tumblr, and Reddit. The discourses surrounding the writers’ strike highlighted several areas in which there was a breakdown in the intent behind copyright law and how it actually functions and impacts those in the media industry. With this in mind, this thesis proposed solutions to these issues by considering alternatives to copyright such as the General Public License and Creative Commons while also looking to differing interpretations of copyright in other nations such as Japan, Poland, and France.
Description
Citation
Citation to related work
Has part
ADA compliance
For Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodation, including help with reading this content, please contact scholarshare@temple.edu