Jul 3, 2026
Raindance Releasing launched with 20 founding films. Scotflix announced. Two platforms built in weeks, not years, both with zero streaming costs and full filmmaker control of their IP, audience data, and revenue. Here is June on the Hiway.
David Orman
Co-Founder & CEO
Two very different markets. One principle.
Transparency and control for the people who make the content.
That is what connected Raindance Releasing and Scotflix this month. Two communities. Two platforms. Both built on the same conviction: filmmakers should own their audience, see their numbers in real time, and get paid the moment a sale happens.
Neither of them needed a development team, a CDN contract, or months of infrastructure work to get there.
That is the point.
01 · The Launch
Raindance Releasing. Now streaming.
We announced it at Cannes. It formally launched at the Raindance Film Festival. Raindance now has its own direct distribution arm, curated by Raindance, powered by Hiway.
Twenty founding films are streaming now at raindance.onthehiway.com.
Raindance Releasing exists so independent filmmakers can keep their IP, own their audience data, and earn a direct share of revenue. It bypasses the usual gatekeepers and the black-box royalty statements that come with them.
Every filmmaker who submitted to Raindance this year will be invited to release next. Features and shorts. Ed Hubbard is managing the content pipeline, with a plan to work back through a decade of Raindance programming and onboard the catalogue systematically.
In true Raindance spirit, it is a curated home for daring, genre-defying, boundary-pushing cinema.
"Raindance has always championed the filmmakers the industry calls too risky. Raindance Releasing gives them a home where they keep their IP, see their audience and get paid directly. No gatekeepers. No black-box statements. Just daring cinema and the audiences who love it."
Elliot Grove · Founder, Raindance Film Festival
Are you a filmmaker looking to release on Raindance Releasing? Check out the user guide.
Contact Us
02 · Coming Next
Scotflix. The home of Scottish screen stories.
Maureen Hascoet of Firewalker Pictures came to us with a clear vision: a platform built by Scottish filmmakers, for Scottish filmmakers.
She signed up within 24 hours of our first call. Our team built the first version of the site over the weekend. By Monday, there were 30 Scottish producers on a call. Several had already committed content before the session ended.
That speed is the product working as designed. A streaming platform powered by Hiway needs no tech team, no CDN contract, and no ingest pipeline. The community brings the films. The infrastructure is already there.
Scotflix runs as a community. Filmmakers promote each other through Hiway's syndication tools, everyone earns from every sale, and every filmmaker sees exactly what their work earns, in real time. The money, the data, and the audience stay in Scotland.
Alasdair Ferguson at The National ran the story before we had even launched. Scotflix goes live at the Scottish Screenwriters Festival in September.
"We don't need permission. We need participation. We don't need validation. We need cooperation and collaboration."
Maureen Hascoet · Founder, Scotflix · Firewalker Pictures
On where Hiway fits in: "This is where Hiway comes in and gives people the reins back so that you can actually have a sustainable career in the industry and in Scotland."
The Innovation
Two platforms. Zero streaming costs.
Raindance Releasing and Scotflix share something no other streaming platforms in the world can claim.
Both carry zero streaming costs, zero content ingestion costs, and zero transcoding costs. Every film streams directly from the content owner's own Hiway library, so the platform never touches the master.
Their content partners lose nothing by being on the platform. Every partner watches their viewing data live, captures all of their customer data, and gets paid their share of every sale in real time. No black boxes. No waiting on quarterly statements.
This is why a festival and a film community could each stand up a streaming platform in weeks, not years. And why the economics work for everyone involved.
03 · The Community
What the community is saying
Real reactions from real conversations this month. Filmmakers, producers, distributors, and festival teams.
"I love it. Filmmakers can still have their own channel and make 90% of their revenue. The dollars can keep cycling around. We're making a filmmaker economy."
Film School Owner
"Finally, someone is actually building what we've been talking about."
Producer
"It's incredible what you guys have set up. Really just amazing."
Verticals Producer
"My mind is buzzing with other things I could use this for, not what the original conversation was for. That's fascinating."
Creator
"I think it's the best solution out there that I've had a look at."
Rights Holder
"Honestly, this should've been built ten years ago."
Filmmaker
The pattern in every conversation is the same. Nobody asks what Hiway does. They ask why it didn't exist sooner.
Take a test drive
04 · The Product
What shipped in June
June was the biggest engineering month in Hiway's history. More than 120 updates shipped, almost all of them focused on hardening the core platform for larger-scale clients, with the protection, controls, and reporting that large catalogues demand.
A brand-new video player
We rebuilt the player from the ground up, with vertical streaming and sequential viewing built in. The player now carries hardware-backed DRM, the same content protection the major studios require, for all of our users.
Collections play like a box set, with episodes flowing straight into the next. A redesigned end screen handles replay, share, and trailers. And underneath, the player reports second-by-second viewing telemetry so your analytics show real watch time in real time.
Syndication evolved
Licensing on Hiway now settles money the moment a sale happens. Set a revenue split with a partner and every sale divides automatically in real time, with a full ledger you can audit. License a single title, a whole collection as one bundle, or attach a deal to a partner's existing storefront.
Referral links mean a partner can sell your film through their own page and every sale still attributes back to you. If they share CRM data, their buyers appear in your CRM. This is the machinery behind community platforms like Scotflix and Raindance Releasing.
And the rest
→ Territory controls. Decide where each title can be watched, with clear messaging for viewers outside the region.
→ B2B CRM. Import contacts by CSV, tag and segment in bulk, grant access to private SmartLinks, and see the full revenue history of every contact.
→ Honest analytics. Page views and video plays counted consistently everywhere, with country drill-downs, a per-sale transactions table, and per-episode collection stats. Real time, as always.
→ Faster publishing. Upload whole batches in one go, edit with a live preview of your landing page and player, and copy a cast list across every episode in one click.
05 · The Coverage
In the press
TVBEurope published a deep dive on Hiway by Jenny Priestley. What we built, why we built it, and why it matters across the content industry. Read the article.
The National broke the Scotflix story, with Alasdair Ferguson covering what a Scottish-owned platform means for the country's filmmakers, producers, and financiers. Read the story.
Follow us on Instagram at @on_the_hiway to see how filmmakers are taking their content direct to fans.
06 · What's Coming
The pipeline
→ AVOD. An ad-supported solution in development.
→ Scottish Screenwriters Festival. September. Scotflix goes live.
→ More platform launches. Names to follow as they go public.
The Hiway is open.
Your Content. Your Fans. Your Money. Your Way.
Sign up at portal.onthehiway.com
Or book a demo and we'll show you round.
About the Author
David Orman
Co-Founder & CEO
With a career that has taken me through venture capital, media, sport and digital content, I’ve picked up more stories than I can count, and too many I can't tell....