Stream of Rivals: Licensing Coalitions and Arthouse Film Streaming Platforms

In this journal, Ramon Lobato and Amanda D. Lotz recently pushed against the prevailing, zero-sum tendency to place [streaming] services into a singular competitive field, proposing instead a more multifaceted conceptualization of competition among video services.[i] This article seeks to further develop this line of thinking, by examining the dynamics of cooperation that structure corners of the streaming economy. Art house streaming platforms, such as MUBI, The Criterion Channel, and OVID, provide a case study to specifically illustrate how independent film distributors, rather than directly competing with one another, form mutually beneficial arrangements when founding and operating their own over-the-top (OTT) services. I argue that these dynamics of cooperation fundamentally sustain those streaming services with marginal market share, the platforms often classified as specialist or niche. These cooperative dynamics furthermore call attention to the analytical distinction between streaming services and content providers, and more consequently, to streaming’s power to extend and transform long-standing relationships between distributors of various sizes. That veterans of art house film distribution have begun operating their own streaming platforms, and creating new licensing infrastructures in the process, calls attention to their very agency, not to mention their codependence. Being profit-driven, art house distributors selected for analysis enter the streaming economy as resistive forces against prevailing trends determined by media conglomerates and Silicon Valley disruptors such as Disney and Netflix. In addition to launching their own art house film streaming platforms, these independent distributors sustain these services by forming licensing coalitions, which monetize a historical film canon while simultaneously seeking to expand and diversify it.