EXCLUSIVE: “The fact that the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes continue to rage on unresolved proves that the lack of visibility creators have into their content is untenable.”
Krish Arvapally, CEO of Web3 blockchain platform Replay, made the argument as his company launched its proprietary blockchain on the video, entertainment and media-focused Theta Metachain today.
Replay hopes its platform can revolutionize how entertainment dealmaking is done by providing a better platform for creatives to protect and monetize their IP. Theta Metachain is a system of interconnected subchains that aims to make digital transactions almost instantaneous and provide heightened transparency between creatives and vendors.
The Replay blockchain works to “measure and provide instant payout for engagement in online videos, solving issues of fragmentation and disparate viewership metrics in streaming,” according to the tech company. The issue of transparency and access to metrics remains central to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, propelling to offer its subchain as a Web3 solution.
Replay is minting its RPLAY token, which means allowing providing a basis for its users to measure engagement and offering an instant digital currency for their content. In effect, the token will operate the protocol, and track payments and how videos are performing.
“Content owners that license to streaming platforms still get their checks via snail mail, months after their content airs and with no insight into how those payments line up with actual viewership, despite the fact that all of this content is being enjoyed online,” said Arvapally.
“Replay blockchain is an open standard for tracking content viewership across smart TV, mobile and web. With RPLAY token tracking video engagement and the upcoming integration of one of Roku’s most popular pop-up apps HalloweenFlix, we’re introducing greater transparency for any streaming app to adopt.”
Replay has spent the past year developing a functioning Web3 video ecosystem that allows more than 50,000 active monthly users to gain tokens for watching and sharing videos on web, mobile and smart TV devices. It uses the Theta Network for its Rewarded.tv streaming app.
Replay has struck partnerships with the likes of the Yu-Gi-Oh! brand and WatchMojo and is working on an animated pilot, Cyko KO, that reunites the cast of Napoleon Dynamite. It is also a member of a digital program exploring the appetite for a decentralized distribution standard for TV and solve issues around the fragmentation of the streaming market.
“After building out the core components of a truly decentralized content economy, we could not be more excited to be launching Replay subchain on Theta Metachain,” said Krish Arvapally, CEO of Replay. “The launch of our own blockchain will be crucial to our active community as we further decentralize our ecosystem, enabling more Web3 functionality with solo validator nodes.”
Of course, the industry is a long way off adopting blockchain tech as a standard payment platform, but a community of online supporters see the method as providing creatives with more and safer ways to protect their content. The debate over residuals and payments to creatives as been a key sticking point in the WGA and SAG strikes, which are now in on their 135th and 62nd days, respectively.