Let me be plain as possible before I start giving you links:
The WGA writers’ strike is practically the definition of a just strike. This is a battle over corporations earning billions of dollars and unfairly refusing to give those most responsible for the creation of the content which mandates their profits their proper due.
Most screenwriters aren’t rich. Yes, the average salary of a Hollywood screenwriter is $200,000. However, that figure is overinflated by the high end of rich screenwriters, the tiny minority who make millions per picture, the Tina Feys and the Steve Carells. (Both of whom, I might add, are striking.) The median salary for a screenwriter is about twenty thousand dollars. So this isn’t a battle between “billionaires and millionaires,” much like the last actors’ strike, where everybody focused on Leonardo DiCaprio’s salary and ignored the fact that most actors, stunningly enough, are not Leonardo DiCaprio.
So, links:
– John August explains the basics.
– John Rogers lays out some excellent metaphor (“that tiger went tiger“) and some mild prediction.
– Ken Levine provides some perspective.
– Rick Schimpf quotes Micah Wright’s now-infamous “Screwed Over For Spongebob” post and adds some commentary. Also, he provides a link to this informative Youtube.
– An account of what happened at the eleventh-hour negotiations.
– Chris Kelly explains residuals.
– Related to the previous item: Mark Evanier explains why residuals aren’t just fair but also encourage writers to perform better.
– Brian K. Vaughn weighs in.
– And finally, Craig Newmark asks the pressing question on everybody’s minds.
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18 users responded in this post
When I’ve been on strike, the first thing the employer did was stop paying me (obvious).
Does this mean that residuals will not be paid during the strike?
Micah Wright? Oh dear. I hope someone’s confirmed his story before it got reposted all over. Not that his story sounds implausible. But this IS Micah Wright.
Man, so my first ever comment on the mgk, and I’ve got to be “That contrarian guy”.
So just to balance I’d like to point out that I have agreed with Chris on everything from the Ontario MMP referendum, to the fact that he *should* write the Legion (and, over my lifetime, I’ve probably devoted a lot more considered thought to the latter issue than the former). I’m a fellow Torontonian and love children and small animals and bathe regularly. You’d probably like me if we met at a party.
But I also happen to be a film producer. And just like all actors are not Leo, and all writers are not Zak Penn, and all directors are not McG (let’s all take a quiet moment of thanks here) – all film and television producers are not the Hollywood studios or the television networks, and for producers – encumbrances on new media rights (like royalties of *any* sort) are a potential disaster that could kill a lot of independent productions.
The availability of new media rights (for internet streaming or download) are increasingly required by television networks (or film distributors) for them to consider purchasing a production – but they aren’t necessarily paying for them… nor are they necessarily using them in a model which would generate income per viewer.
Let’s compare with a DVD sale – it’s easy to calculate a royalty on a DVD sale as someone is purchasing a certain number of physical goods and paying the producer (or distributor) for each one.
However if a television network demands the availability of new media streaming rights to carry your show (locally CTV offers episodes of select recent series on-line so you can get “caught up” with series you haven’t watched since the beginning for example) they are not going to pay you more for those rights, nor is the end viewer paying anything “per use”. So if a production is encumbered having to pay “per viewer royalties” a producer would either have to demand more money from their broadcaster (which makes it less likely that their show will be purchased, or at the least, make it less desirable than competing shows) or force the broadcaster to pay the royalty directly which would (ostensibly) need to be passed on to their viewer.
And how exactly do you determine how many times a production has been seen (per person, per IP, per byte transmitted)? Who tracks this and reports it? If the broadcaster is responsible for reporting, and paying the royalty wouldn’t it be in their interest to cheat?
And increasingly as televison and the internet merge how do you determine what is a “new media” useage and what is a “television” useage? Is watching a show over a streambox new media or television? What about IPTV? What about people who torrent episodes on-line? Should the producer be liable for royalties for that, unless they sue the trangressors? What about if a shows producer offers free episodes on-line to get people to watch the show?
Is the only solution for producers to make sure their shows are *never* available in *any* way on-line or in *any* fortmat that isn’t crippled with digital-rights-management proprietary gak?
I don’t want to “exploit” anyone, or get rich off the hard work of talented artists who have worked long and hard to hone their craft, but I don’t understand why “royalties” are a requisite to “fair compensation”. In all kinds of creative businesses you come up with a fair price to be paid outright for a creative work, add in performance bonuses, or gross revenue sharing as appropriate and go from them. Painters don’t get “royalties” if their paintings are re-sold for more money.
I’d much rather pay a fair price outright for a script and maintain unencumbered rights to distribute and exhibit it however I can. That may mean giving away some (or all) of it for free to build audience to make it more appealing to broadcasters. That may mean tightly controlling it, but maintaining that flexibility is critical to trying to make money at an industry that’s increasingly depressing for independents.
If, as a writer, you don’t think I’m trustworthy to make those decisions in the best interest of a project – don’t sell me your script (or time to write a script for whatever I’m working on). Industry cliche #1 is the shady money-grubbing producer – for the most part we’re people passionate about media who want to make entertaining products and maintain good relationships with the creative partners we employ.
To paint this as “hollywood vs the common man” is just short sighted, as the interests of the “common man” also encompass the independent producers, and the end viewers, who this issue directly will affect – and at a very base level *any* WGA royalty on new media will directly mean the death of all kinds of exciting internet/television convergences which might be interesting to all of us.
So what you’re talking about is Work for Hire…isn’t it basically?
In the first place, Brad, if I cared about people being contrarian, I wouldn’t have comments and Phanatic and Zenrage would have to be hunted down and killed, or at least given a severe talking-to. So no worries on that front.
In the second place I must confess that it is horrible of me that my first thought, upon reading your comment, was “maybe he wants to read my screenplay!”
But in the third place:
I don’t want to “exploit” anyone, or get rich off the hard work of talented artists who have worked long and hard to hone their craft, but I don’t understand why “royalties” are a requisite to “fair compensation”. In all kinds of creative businesses you come up with a fair price to be paid outright for a creative work, add in performance bonuses, or gross revenue sharing as appropriate and go from them. Painters don’t get “royalties” if their paintings are re-sold for more money.
The painting itself is a static, individual work, though. A better analogy in this case would be prints of the painting. If I own the painting (and thus the rights to the work), do I not deserve a share of the revenue garnered by sales of prints of the painting? Or if I choose to let it be viewed, do I not have a right to demand payment by the museum showcasing it? (This happens frequently, after all.)
Don’t get me wrong – I know the cliche of the greedy moneybags producer to be (mostly) false, and I’ve worked with lots of talented, dedicated producers. But just as most dollars earned by screenwriters go to guys doing it part-time and grinding out small paycheques, most dollars spent by producers flow out of the big seven, and that fact dictates how the writers’ collective agreement will be written, one way or the other.
As for the independent producer – well, a writer can waive his residual rights as he chooses. No, that’s not the greatest option available, but it’s something.
Not really, although both debates share some common issues. There’s nothing inherent about “ownership” in the debate, which is where “Work for Hire” gets murky.
If I can be so bold as to summarize someone elses beliefs: I think the majority of WGA membership feels they got a raw deal on DVD revenue sharing because of the huge cash-cow DVD’s have become to the studios. Back in the 80s this was probably true, but no one saw the value in the direct market. They don’t want the same thing to happen in a world that they (correctly) percieve as moving to more on-line delivery systems, so they want to factor hard royalties for any on-line useage into their agreement.
The problem with this is there’s no hard-and-fast “on-line” system that you can apply all royalties to without either stifling technology, or allowing enough loopholes that distributors will see to it that neither producers nor writers ever see a cent of “profit” (although this happens to some extent already).
I have no problem with negotiating extensive revenue sharing, copyright splitting, AND internet royalties for a project if that project can survive with those encumbrances – but if you make them mandatory you’re just making it impossible for independent producers to work with WGA writers.
To some extent this has already happened with actors on ultra low-budget (>$500,000) films in Canada. ACTRA has a mandatory royalty system for low-budget films which allows producers to hire ACTRA talent at reduced rates, but so encumbers the film with mandatory royalties there is no way any distributor would ever buy it. As such producers have the unenviable choice of either making a film with the best possible talent, but never be able to sell it anywhere, or work with non-union actors.
I just don’t understand why “fair compensation” is synonymous with “mandatory royalty” as it envisions a future of digital distribution that’s a lot more micropayment based than the one I’d ideally like to see.
Hey Chris,
No I’m sure spirited debate is more than welcome, I just love the fact that the only time I ever de-cloak and post anywhere it’s to be the one guy in the thread defending Keith Giffen or Projectra-as-a-big-snake or something.
Anyhoo.
The painting itself is a static, individual work, though. A better analogy in this case would be prints of the painting. If I own the painting (and thus the rights to the work), do I not deserve a share of the revenue garnered by sales of prints of the painting? Or if I choose to let it be viewed, do I not have a right to demand payment by the museum showcasing it? (This happens frequently, after all.)
To which I would say “maybe”. That’s the tricky thing. I can think of lots of situations where shares of additional revenue is deserved, and lots where it isn’t.
But just as most dollars earned by screenwriters go to guys doing it part-time and grinding out small paycheques, most dollars spent by producers flow out of the big seven, and that fact dictates how the writers’ collective agreement will be written, one way or the other.
But that’s the disconnect. Perhaps the most *dollars* come out of the studios, but they aren’t (by a long shot) hiring the majority of the Writers. The majority of television series are produced by independents who re-sell (or pre-sell or desperately hope to sell) to the networks, and by the same token far more WGA writers are hired to develop scripts for the collected worlwide independants than through the studios directly. But because they have the majority of the dollars (and the vertical integration) they’re probably the only ones who could survive in a royalty required world, since they could control both the creation and distribution, while producers by definition just focus on creation.
I doubt you’d see the entire production sector close up shop, but I guarantee there’d be a lot less people developing work on spec.
As for the independent producer – well, a writer can waive his residual rights as he chooses. No, that’s not the greatest option available, but it’s something.
The problem with CBA’s is that generally the parties don’t have the ability to waive rights in the collective agreement without the unions blessing and the union’s best interest are not allowing exceptions to hard-fought gains. That doesn’t mean I, as a producer, wouldn’t try – but I can count the concessions I’ve ever seen negotiated on a CBA with any union on one hand.
Brad — no worries, you are not alone. I too will defend your contrarian perspective with the last of my breath.
I loved Sneckie.
You’re on your own with Giffen, though.
You want my address, Chris? That’ll save you time from hunting me down. I already gave it out on IMDB to a creationist crackpot who thought he could scare me by saying he would come find me too. That was two months ago. I haven’t heard from him since.
I’m a militant atheist and an egalitarian socialist so I’ve got a lot of practice asserting and defending unpopular opinions. And for the record, I may disagree with you on your Spider-Man interpretation and the general consensus of the Thing as a character and I’m sorry but Garth Ennis is highly overrated, but I am with you 100% on this issue. What was it again?
Thank you so very much for this. I read Ken Levine, so I knew a bit about the strike, but not enough, as investigating the links above have shown.
I’ll be sure to pass on this page to anyone I know who wants to know why television is in reruns, or who buys the cable news crap framing of the strike, which apparently is going to be “Should we feel sorry for the writers?” (with a not very subtle nudge towards “no”).
One link to add, to the singular silver lining to the strike: a short return of Ze Frank!
[…] being said his recent post on the Writers Guild of America strike troubled me as it evoked a general feeling I’ve gotten on-line that this is a slam-dunk issue […]
See now I like Giffen, Projecta as a snake…not so much…
Zenrage said:
You want my address, Chris?
He already said he didn’t want it. Or were you just advertising your IMDB forum manliness?
Reading comprehension: it’s not just for nerds anymore.
I think it’s indicative of the quality of this blog that when I decided to check out the facts about the strike, I came here first.
You know Dayv, one of the things that constantly puzzles theists is why Atheists take offense whenever theists tell them to go to hell since Atheists don’t believe in hell. Well if I told you I was going to beat you over the head with a hammer every time I saw you, you’d probably take it as a threat regardless of whether you believed I had a hammer or not.
If people are going to make jokes about hunting down and killing someone specific on their site, then maybe they shouldn’t be too surprised when those specific people turn around and say something about it.
Zenrage, I’m still a bit boggled over your inability to comprehend a negated hypothetical, so you’ll have to excuse me for not getting how this became a discussion of your atheism.
mightybaldking said:
When I’ve been on strike, the first thing the employer did was stop paying me (obvious).
Does this mean that residuals will not be paid during the strike?
That’s not really how contracts work. Residuals are payments for revenue derived from work that has already been performed, as guaranteed in the contracts signed when that work was done.
When you were on strike, they didn’t pay you for the work you were currently not doing. The striking writers aren’t turning in any new work, so they’re not getting paid for these nonscripts while they strike.
This isn’t actually very complicated.
But they can still write, no? Churn out a script when not marching, and then sell it once they get a contract hammered out? So they can get paid for the work they are doing right now. It is just a delayed payment. Or maybe I am not understanding how this works… either way, good luck to all involved.