White Rabbit Announces Blockchain-based Digital Streaming Service

A blockchain project aiming to monetize P2P streaming to benefit filmmakers and fans alike has been announced.

White Rabbit, as the service is titled, is a step forward from traditional digital distribution platforms like Netflix and Amazon. Instead of relying on traditionally centralized models that mostly take away a considerable chunk from filmmakers’ profits, White Rabbit introduces a service that creates a direct connection between a viewer and a filmmaker. Let’s take a look how:

White Rabbit is actually a browser plugin from where viewers can stream films and TV series from any open streaming service of their choice. The beauty of this plugin is the absence of middlemen. That means: if a viewer selects a digital content to watch, he/she can directly now directly pay to the filmmaker. The direct-transfer becomes possible with the inclusion of blockchain and smart contracts. Both the immutable technologies ensure that user payments go directly to the rights holders — without delay.

“This allows filmmakers to enjoy the immediate reward for their efforts while removing middlemen means the reward is more affordable for the fans,” says an excerpt from White Rabbit’s latest Medium blog post. “That is the beginning of our true mission: bring the fans and filmmakers closer together.”

The team hasn’t gone much into the technical aspects of their digital streaming platform yet; it is still waiting to deliver the first draft of its whitepaper. Nevertheless, White Rabbit looks promising due to the involvement of trustable names in the team. They include seasoned film producers, distributors, and software developers that add the much-required trustworthiness should there be a crowdsale in the future. The White Rabbit team has stated that a pre-sale and imminent ICO will start from November 27, 2017.

On being compared to digital streaming services like Netflix, Alan R Milligan — the CEO and founder of White Rabbit — attempted to draw a striking line between the two, stating that,

“OTT services like Netflix have globalized digital streaming and created great content these last few years. Yet, they have not shown a sustainable business model and have therefore become studios competing directly with the films they used to buy. We are all in need of an open and competitive marketplace in digital distribution. With White Rabbit, we can offer a global, sustainable, transparent business model that also combats piracy without having to intimidate our fans — everyone wins, everyone is rewarded.”