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A DAO Wants To Make Blockbuster a Decentralized Film Streaming Service (theblockcrypto.com) 34

Posted by BeauHD from the because-why-not dept.
A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) wants to buy the defunct movie rental business Blockbuster and create a decentralized film streaming service out of it -- "with plans for movie financing and production down the road," reports The Block. From the report: The new DAO's name is, aptly, BlockbusterDAO. [...] To achieve its goals, BlockbusterDAO intends to raise $5 million to purchase Blockbuster from Dish Network, an American television provider that bought the movie rental company in 2011. BlockbusterDAO aims to raise the cash by selling BlockbusterDAO NFTs for 0.13 ETH (about $530 USD).

"One reported offer 'low-balled' $1.8 million for the brand, but it seems that the price tag is going to be higher to beat out any counter-offers," wrote the DAO's creator on Twitter. DAOs gained prominence in 2021 as a way for groups to democratically make decisions and achieve a common goal. They often use NFTs, governance tokens or other forms of cryptocurrency to vote on these decisions and raise funds for the DAO.
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A DAO Wants To Make Blockbuster a Decentralized Film Streaming Service More

A DAO Wants To Make Blockbuster a Decentralized Film Streaming Service

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  • Yay.. Another one.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by splutty ( 43475 ) on Monday December 27, 2021 @07:59PM (#62120715)

    Because what we really really needed was more streaming services. I'm going to give this one a year from when it actually opens, if it ever opens.

    Torrents are starting to sounds more and more attractive again instead of paying for 7 different streaming services. Straight back to the same bullshit that was cable, it looks like.

    • Sounds like a streaming service where they want to use paying customers resources to run the service (bandwidth, cpu and storage) sounds lame to me.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by edis ( 266347 )

        If these be excessive, would you really care??

      • That's what I thought too, but according to the twitter thread/article, the DAO is just for corporate governance. The streaming platform itself will be a "proprietary site." But they will give out tokens left and right.

    • But wait, this one is a DAO, so with blockchain! But wait, there's more.... It plays into the recently concept of 'Web3' [slashdot.org], the new, shiny decentralized internet!!!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by splutty ( 43475 )

        Huh. I can't read your message. My filter just displays "Bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit BINGO" for some reason.

    • different streaming services? need anti CSN Philly rule to stop

      that requires most television channels to be offered to direct broadcast satellite providers; this loophole, known as the "terrestrial exception" Before we end up with things that are only on COMCAST ISP, starlink or maybe ATT ONLY.
      And if can be big plus if say Netflix was forced to offer the shows to directv / dish as an satellite tv channel / ESPN was forced to offer there live sports feeds as cable / satellite tv channels to all systems.

    • If there is something we want to watch, we should be able to go to multiple streaming services and choose the one that is the cheapest; because that is real competition. For most things now, there is no choice where you buy that thing to watch so there is no real competition.

  • It just sounds like a great, foolproof idea overall.

  • DAO - Founders vs. Investors. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Monday December 27, 2021 @08:27PM (#62120761) Journal
    How decentralised are these organisations really? I seem to recall a certain DAO intent on buying a copy of the US constitution, but when that fell through, it turned out that your slice of that DAO didn’t give you part ownership or even voting rights; they (whoever they are) basically had your money to do whatever with. A bit like kickstarter projects except with even less oversight.

    Does the Blockbuster DAO give you an ownership share or a cut of the profits? If not, why would you buy in? Hoping that your NFT appreciates in value? Might as well buy some Shiba inus or Pornrockets.
    • A dao is a contract, you can read the code and see how its government. It's all public.

    • To be sure, buying the brand name is the easiest part of their plan.

    • Re:DAO - Founders vs. Investors. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot@worf.ERDOSnet minus math_god> on Monday December 27, 2021 @09:47PM (#62120877)

      A DAO is a company formed to acquire another company. It's actually used to skirt around IPO laws and such.

      Basically you form a company. You take that company public for $X per share so you can use that money to buy another company. You purchase that company through a standard acquisition. The DAO then changes their name to the acquired company, thus taking the acquired company public without having to do all the IPO disclosures or anything.

      There are "decentralized acquisition organizations" - decentralized just means it's not one person buying another company (i.e., Apple buys some small startup means Apple itself buys the company, a DAO it's "investors buy the company"). Acquisition is just that - they are a company formed to acquire another company.

      It's all about skirting SEC rules, in the end - it's how you take a company public without taking it public. Not that people contribute to the pot in buying the company, actual ownership and management is dictated by the terms of the DAO contract.

      It's just like how the company acquired the trump social media thing. Trump wanted to skirt the disclosure rules so they had another public company acquire the Trump group on it.

      Personally, it seems like everyone just figured out more ways to screw people over by exploiting loopholes in the SEC regulations. DeFi and such just seem like ways to extract money from fools thinking it's the next big thing.

  • Do the Rug Pull. First push your hands out in front then pull them back as fast as you can, now you're doing the Rug Pull. Do the Rug Pull.

  • charges (Score:3)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Monday December 27, 2021 @09:23PM (#62120851)

    Does it cost extra if I return the stream late or if I forget to rewind it? Just a few tokens more?

  • DAO? (Score:3)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Monday December 27, 2021 @10:11PM (#62120899) Journal
    I thought DAO was replaced by ADO years ago!

  • They're going to buy the name? Seriously?

    First, get the damn thing working. Then have the marketers name it something.

    Nobody cares if it's named after a defunct video rental service. You can buy the name later, when you actually have revenue.

    • Don't you have fond memories of Blockbuster? Going into it and not finding the movie you want because there's only 2 copies. Being the 50th person to watch the tape as it gradually gets more and more artifacts. Getting hit by 20 dollar return fees because you forgot about it in the player for a month. Can't figure out why people jumped on Netflix the moment that a mail in service without late fees became an option.

  • So is this one of those so-called Web3 applications? Good luck. "Decentralized" or "crypto" doesn't really solve a problem for video streaming, and they'll still have to license the content.

  • So, how are they planning on storing the massive amounts of data needed for a video on the blockchain? Better yet, how are they planning on locating all the chunks of the video distributed all over the place and then arranging for the bandwidth needed for the viewer to retrieve them?

    Oh, that's right, they don't plan on doing any of that. All they're planning is a standard centralized streaming service with the blockchain used solely for access control. And then they wonder why people are skeptical of the wh

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mattr ( 78516 )

      They could use a distributed storage service like storj maybe. My question is, does the "Blockbuster" they purchase own any media library or even streaming rights or is it just a trademark and a logo? Maybe there is more to it but it seems that the only thing they would need "Blockbuster" for is a name to draw in chumps^H^H^H^H^H^H seed money investors. If you want to make a distributed streaming service then do it. What they need is to strike deals with content owners for microlicensing on demand like "pro

  • DAO ... or DOA? (Score:3)

    by bb_matt ( 5705262 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2021 @01:24AM (#62121109)

    "Dead on Arrival" is my bet.

    Just looking at the financial logistics of this, we need to only look to Netflix and how long it took them to get where they are and how long before they returned an operating profit. Answer - a considerable amount of time.

    In the cryptocurrency circle jerk, most "investors" haven't got the patience to wait a month for returns, let alone a decade.

    So, the business model of all these types of decentralised startups, is that liquidity is provided by "speculators", who buy up tokens and then stake them.
    The larger speculators start their own pools, for PoS purposes and smaller speculators can add their stake to these pools.
    The premise is that the "investors" can not only benefit from potential token price increases, but also from "micro payments" for each transaction, based on their stake.

    So far, so good ... right?

    The idea is that this encourages decentralisation by encouraging more and more pools of liquidity - and this is then used to rollout services.

    What could possibly go wrong? /s

    So many things. Everything.

    For starters, the project is only as decentralised as :

    a. The amount of pools
    b. The distribution of stake within those pools.

    The other issue, is of course, the company that founded the idea - the startup - calls the shots, which is seen as effectively centralised, so they come up with the idea of consensus, where everyone gets to vote on the direction of travel.

    The problem with this is :

    a. It is super slow to make timely decisions
    b. You are dealing with "investors" who probably just want to make profit and aren't that interested in voting

    The entire solution is wide open to manipulation.

    So, the startup will claim "We will put measures in place to prevent too much control over Nodes by single investors" and that consensus - voting - will ensure this is possible.

    Right, so call me crazy, but if the cryptocurrency market continues to be wildly volatile, what incentive is there for investors to keep their stake in pools or to start pools?
    The startup will claim "We will put in place mechanisms where a stake has to be in place for X amount of time before it can be withdrawn."

    All of this, before the REAL business of providing a movie streaming service has been put in place. You know, the slightly complicated and important issue of providing enough server farms to actually stream content. Oh - wait, do the USERS provide this? Right, it's p2p? - hmmm. That sounds soooo reliable... /s

    Sure, starting a streaming service off the back of venture capitalists has its own issues, but venture capitalists tend to be long term in their thinking.
    They aren't looking for profit in the order of months, but rather years - or a decade.

    The cryptocurrency circle jerk has proven to be incapable of these time scales. When the "next shiny" comes along, everyone jumps ship - "made my profits there in 1 month, Wh00t, time to divest and put my profit into another startup."

    How many "investors" in schemes like this, are operating on that exact principle - how many do not even care what the startup is doing, what the final goal is - they just want to see quick profit.

    The way I see it, if a company like this is going to be successful, it comes at the expense of the fact it ends up just as centralised - with the added complication of the blockchain thrown on top. All of the "pools" of liquidity, just end up being owned by investors with a huge stake. Instead of the promised ideal of hundreds of pools with millions of liquidity providers, you end up with a handful.
    All the consensus in the world, isn't going to stop a startup on a sinking ship, changing the rules. "The ship is sinking, can we approach XYZ venture capitalist to buy up 95% stake?" - "Erm, that's against our rules" - "Well, let's change those rules"

    This DAO is DOA.

    Or you could read it like this:

    Startup has millions to invest in c

  • DAOs are perfect for the "cash out the remaining goodwill associated with an old defunct brand name" business model, the one we've seen with Atari, Radio Shack etc.

    Though here at least, it's the "investors" goodwill that's being exploited, they probably won't get to the customers'.

  • Wanna take bets how long it'll take for this to show up on Web3 is going just great [web3isgoinggreat.com], and how much it'll add to the total?

  • "BlockbusterDOA" is more like it. as in Dead On Arrival. We don't need yet another streaming service UNLESS it has everything, and when I say everything, I mean everything. Every single movie or series already produced in one place.

  • "A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) wants to buy the defunct movie rental business Blockbuster "

    DAO will be DOA .

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