What nobody seems to get in all of this is that residuals (or royalties, which are conceptually the same thing) are a way of dealing with the host of unknowns in advance of the release of a creative work. Residuals mean that especially popular works will reap large rewards for the creative talent, while unpopular ones will not. This avoids the need to try to factor in all the possible popularity scenarios in the initial payment to the creatives. In practice, it would be impossible to do. Rather, it lowers ris for the studios, because their residual exposure only accompanies product that turns out to be popular (i.e., reused multiple times). Since the studio presumably receives additional money for the additional exploitation of the work, it is not unfair for the creative talent to share in that additional money.
At the same time, the creatives are willing to take a lower initial payment in return for the possibility of greater future returns if the product is successful.
Thus, there is nothing nefarious about residuals. They are a recognition that some creative products have more success than others.
The real problem comes when a studio or other licensee wants to use the product(s) of artist A to promote the product of artist B, or simply to promote the studio itself. It is easier to look at the example of record companies, although the principle is the same in film/TV media.
Imagine, for example, that Capitol Records wants to promote a new artist by inducing major record stores to put this artist's records in a prominent position in the store, or put up display windows for the new artist on the outside of the store. The record company could pay cash to the store as a promotional fee. More convenient for the record company, however, would be to provide free CDs from their most popular catalog artists, such as The Beatles or The Beach Boys, to the record store. This way, the record store gets one hundred percent profit on each Beatles or Beach Boys CD it sells, so it acts as a subsidy to the record store. From the artist's perspective (that is, The Beatles or The Beach Boys), this provision of "promotional" CDs to the record store (a) does not benefit those artists at all -- they have no reason to care if the new artist's product sells or not, and (b) generates zero royalties, because this free product is accounted to them as "promotional." (I litigated a lengthy case involving these precise issues a number of years ago.)
Moving to the present context: In the same way. NBC and others want to stream their programming on the web as "promotional" in order to reap side benefits that they believe will accrue to them, perhaps web advertising, perhaps something else not yet invented. They essentially want to "buy" their online audience without paying anything more to the creatives. Admittedly, the value of what is being bought cannot easily be measured at this point in time, and it might be that it is a terrible investment. But the writers and other creatives believe that the online uses must have some kind of value, and the argument is about how to put some kind of valuation on the use.
There is also uncertainty about downloadable film/TV product that uses high-speed broadband as a substitute for physical possession of a DVD or other media. It is foreseeable that this kind of electronic delivery will become more prevalent in the next 5+ years. The writers and other creatives want to at least hold their ground, if not improve it, with this kind of delivery in comparison to the current formulae for VHS and DVD home video formats.
VG
Tom Shipley
· 2 years ago
"However, I'm having a great deal of trouble sympathizing with either side of this dispute, considering the volume of revenue this industry generates now and will in the future."
I don't think the writer's are asking for your sympathy. They're asking you to see their side of the story, which it seems you do.
Because there is a lot of money in this industry, does that mean writers don't have the right to try and receive a fair compensation of that money? I really don't understand how the amount of money in the industry would impact whether or not you think the writers are getting their fair share. Because there's a lot of money in the industry, should writer's settle for less than they think they deserve?
Any professional has a right to ensure they are getting paid fairly for their work. This is what this strike is about. And all this ambivelance and "i could care less about this" is more about anti-Hollywood stentiment that many on the right have than about the actual issues of the strike.
Anthony Ragan
· 2 years ago
Shawna and I could be fraternal twins: I'm also a conservative writer in Los Angeles; I too aspire to write for television; and I support the union in this particular action. But, while I was framing a comment to your earlier post, she beat me to it. (And did a much better job at it, at that.)
The point I want to emphasize is that residuals are very important to a writer: if you're not on staff at a long-running, successful show, then residuals are all you may have between sales. They might be your sole income for a year or more while you try to make another sale or get hired on another staff. WGA made a big mistake regarding residuals and electronic rights twenty years ago; now their descendants are trying to rectify that mistake and make sure it doesn't happen again.
The ones acting in bad faith here are the studios (and the corporations that own them). They welshed on the deal they made in 1985 (to make the cut in video residuals temporary), and now they want to pay almost nothing for new media, which they are on record saying they will themselves make billions from. (There's a clip of Sumner Redstone on one of the financial shows gloating over how much they'll make from the Internet.) Given that writers depend on royalties, I don't call AMPTP's offers a good faith attempt to split the pie at all.
Like I wrote, I'm not a knee-jerk supporter of unions by any means, but even a union can be right. In this case, WGA is much more right than AMPTP or their corporate masters.
MarkD
· 2 years ago
I get somewhere around 200 cable channels and there are plenty of times there is nothing on that I want to watch. The market is there. Why do the undiscovered actors and unpublished writers and aspiring producers and directors not get together and create for cable?
Bypass the old distribution networks. It seems to work for Amazon.
Heck, I'll even give you another couple of hints: R rated movies don't do especially well at the box office. It's not a good business model to ensure that part of your customer base cannot buy your product. Think family entertainment.
Next hint: How many times have you seen the comments on this blog bemoaning the lack of patriotic films showing the US military in a more realistic and virtuous light. Do you suppose there might be a market for something that does not trash or insult our country, males, religion, and every accent and location between the coasts?
I missed the memo about nobody else being allowed to make a movie or a TV series. We've got money to spend. We've got cable and DVD players.
Stephen J.
· 2 years ago
"One commenter says that the cast gets 12 cents per unit to split among them, which makes the four cents for the writers' split seem rather reasonable, since the performers are also selling their likenesses -- and with most casts, the individuals will likely get less revenue than the individual writers on a show."
It *can* seem reasonable, but you're forgetting that an actor is compensated for every episode in which he appears (anywhere from 22-25 episodes for a regular, 8-12 or more for a recurring character), whereas a writer is only compensated for the episodes he has formal writing credit on (as noted by Shawna, an individual writer often gets no more than 2-3 scripts a season, if that). The money still doesn't favour the writers.
thedoctor2001
· 2 years ago
I am having more trouble than you sympathsizing with either side. Frankly, I don't care. If you don't like the money...do something else for a living. Such whining!
K T Cat
· 2 years ago
doctor, that's pretty much what I thought, too. The intermittent nature of the work seems to be made for the dilettante, not someone looking for a solid, stable career. That's the life of the TV writer and it's not much of a secret.
Like Super Chicken always told Fred, "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it"
Incognito
· 2 years ago
Well, that's a pretty lame comment, .. if all of us in the arts chose another career because we don't like the money... then what would you be watching on stages, tvs and movie screens... zippo!
Pam
· 2 years ago
Then we would find some other form of entertainment and the writer would need to make a living in another field..right?
John
· 2 years ago
Je regret. I still don't understand why I should care one way or the other. its a simple industrial labor dispute.Unlike a railroad, airline, steelworker, auto industry , et al dispute it doesn't appear that it much impacts people outside of the industry.
Stephen Macklin
· 2 years ago
I'm having a little trouble accepting the analogy of someone writing an episode of a tv show to someone writing a novel. Unless you a creating a show from nothing you start with established characters, largely established settings, and in most cases a fairly formulaic plot line. Even the dialog is somewhat determined by existing patterns of what a character would say in a given situation.
How hard would it be to write an episode of any one of the CSI shows (particularly the one set in Miami). Come up with how the body was found, how the victim was killed, and what telling piece of DNA evidence the investigator finds looking through a car with an electron microscope and processes in 30 seconds. Throw in a few stage directions to tell David Carusso when to tilt his head and put on his sunglasses and you've got a show.
Yes, tv writing is creative (though the evidence is often microscopic) but to compare filling in the blanks on a template with creating an original novel is a bit of stretch.
naftali
· 2 years ago
There's another issue here, which is what will the effects of the strike be, is it the best strategy? The consequence of the last strike was the reality show, which probably put more writers out of work.
It seems as if the entire culture out there is completely out of touch with the world. On the one hand, they churn out product that most people do not like. They churn it out because they feel it is their divine calling to question values, shock, and show us our own stupidity--all in a shallow and stereotyped way. And now we are supposed to care about this industry and potential troubles it has. This can only happen in a Hollywood script, where people act a certain way because the writer or producer wants it to happen--'okay, so then we strike, and the nation rallies to our cause because we're, like, oppressed people everywhere. And then the producers will see the errors of their ways and become the kindhearted people they really want to be deep inside. And cut to the final kiss'.
I've said this before on this site. A parallel Hollywood needs to grow, and what better time to start it? There needs to be a media and mass culture produced that reflect the way people feel, and has some care for truth and accuracy, and whose writers' create with real feeling and an eye towards quality. I see sparks of this in the blogosphere, I see no reason why it can't grow into a larger industry in another part of the country. The technology is becoming increasing decentralized--that is, what were the chances of a blog and forum like this popping up in a major newspaper in the 1970s. It was impossible.
The creative writers need to be a little more creative.
SkyWatch
· 2 years ago
It is my understanding that other nations will profit from this. Canada for one is making a push into the Big Pictures market so it is just a small jump to enter the made for tv stuff.
K. Morrison
· 2 years ago
While I think the writers have a point about web profits, if either side is banking on public sympathy I think their going to be disappointed. Many people are simply fed up with Hollywood and just don't care about the strike.
Derek C.
· 2 years ago
I guess where this falls out of bed with me from the industry's perspective is that no one is forcing anyone to be a "writer". My point is that according to the numbers in the post there seems to be a 'glut' of writers in the market - 12,000 writers for a limited number of writing positions resulting in a median pay of $4,000. Since supply is greater than demand then the price of the product will inherently go down. If this were any many other industry I doubt anyone would be up in arms about this.
AndyJ
· 2 years ago
What should be the fair share-? The funding capitalist pays for the product and takes 100% of the risk if it fails. I see no offers to share the risk only to share the rewards. Will the talent that creates the entertainment be willing to share in a flop-?
Given the "share-the-wealth" mentality, please advise what amounts they paid to the carpenters, architects, contractors for their own housing-? What do they propose to pay to the workers, who assembled their cars, the designers, the mechanics for their automobiles-? We have seen the value of Mercedes Gullwings, Dusenbergs, and others reach atsronomical proportions in the Barrett-Jackson auctions, yet there is no word of residuals for the people who brought it into being-?
Therea are risks of developing new ideas in medicine. Yet, the companies who fund the risk are given only a limited and finite period of protection and then their efforts can be taken without payment by anyone.
Why is the crafting of words so important that the marketplace must be suspended-? Why do medicines , houses, cars, and many other important innovations get only a limited period of reward in comparison-?
Creating new beneficiaries of success while insulating them from the risks creates a marketplace that has never been successful. It can only work, even for a limited period, when there is an enclosed environment with limited and restricted entry. However that does not produce innovation or efficiency...
The Marketplace works.
Kari
· 2 years ago
Awesome point, Andy. The risks involved for the people shelling out the cash is great, and I doubt the writers would be willing to share in the profit loss risk. Most book writers nowadays do not even see many residuals from the sale of their book because copyright contracts are usually geared toward the book publisher retaining the rights. These writers chose this line of work and as the rest of us appear to know, you work where you can make a living or you move on.
Shawna Benson
· 2 years ago
Capt. Ed, I appreciate you taking the time read my comments, and I appreciate the other comments on this issue.
I have one clarification and one other point to make, based on some of the other comments here.
First off, the 4 cents which has been bandied about is actually the amount based on a percentage. It is not a flat 4 cents. The actual amount of DVD residuals is .03%. It has always been a percentage, so, writers residuals decrease with prices.
The reason I think this strike is more signficant than say, a railroad strike, is that it isn't just about labor. This is about intellectual property. As a supporter of free markets, I completely understand and am largely sympathetic to the argument that writers should be paid what they can get. The entertainment industry is really like no other industry in the U.S. -- the unions exist because it is one of the few businesses that people will do whatever it takes to try to break into -- people move to Los Angeles or New York with the dream of being an actor, a writer or a director. If there was no union, the economics would push downward -- there are so many aspirants trying to get in, they would take far less than the minimums to get a chance at writing at all. Already there are grave concerns about "scabs" in the industry -- there are so many writers who are not in the guild who would risk future earnings for the ability to write something today.
And as for getting another job...would you tell someone who wanted to become a world-class watchmaker to get another job? Would you tell a person writing a novel to get a real job? Writing is not easy. I work my 40 hour 'day job' and then go home and spend another 4 hours a night writing. I would hope that even bloggers would know that writing is one of those skills (and yes, it's a skill) that is easier said than done.
Again, I thank everyone for the insightful debate.
Derek C.
· 2 years ago
Shawna, I can certainly understand those with talent (be it acting, writing, directing etc.) wanting to show their abilities to the world. However, it seems that there is a disconnect when you compare the world-class watchmaker to the writers strike. Fore example, the fact that someone has the ability to make a watch is amazing in the first place, and then to rise to the level of world-class means that this individual should be able to command a higher price for his/her wares than others. However, the same is not true in your case (not to belittle what you do, I find it admirable given that I couldn't write my way out of a wet paper bag). However, the fact that there are a lot more world-class writers/actors/directors in the world (or aspirant writers/actors/directors) indicate that there are more than the market can bear and thus cannot command a higher price in the market like your watch maker example. However, I do wish you well.
Shawna Benson
· 2 years ago
Hmm, I think you got me there. I'll work on my analogies. Believe me, this was hardly the worst -- I've seen really great writers come up with really horrible analogies.
It should be said that this is probably the beginning of a major shift in how scripted entertainment is created and distributed. I'm not saying we should hold on to the old ways of doing things. In fact, if anyone wants to offer up some venture capital on a couple of scripted series ideas I have, I'd be happy to discuss a new online content creation and distribution model. No takers? *sigh* Then I guess I'll have to wait this thing out and hope the studios are still buying tv pilots...
It's sad to see the "traditional" means of programming go the way of the dinosaur. It's also exciting to realize all of the new opportunities that are out there. Personally, I'm trying to take advantage of the new opportunities (I am actually producing my own web series right now) without the need of the union. But if I want a large audience to see my work TODAY...it's the studio / union system or nothing. Sad truth.
Larry
· 2 years ago
Hollywood has been mass media for years. This means that its products get distributed all over the US (and more recently, much of the world). The downside of this is that there is far less room for all the people who want to be in the industry. If it were a more regional industry, there'd be room for most everybody.
And in fact, there are a lot of historical precedents even in the media industry for the model of talent as owners, going all the way back to the original United Artists in 1919. Some of those precedents worked great -- George Lucas, for example. Some flamed out. Of course, they were all up against the bottlenecks.
But here we are, living in a world in which the bottlenecks have suddenly become irrelevant.
I don't think there's any question that this is the logical model to pursue in the age of the Internet -- the age of free distribution and marketing.
Suppose the writers' strike continues for months to come -- and even beyond that, suppose the actors or the directors also go on strike. In such a scenario, it is hard to see how many companies based on this new model won't be created extremely quickly -- after all, if you really can't work for the Man, why not start your own company, if you can?
And if you are a primary creator in Hollywood, the model for starting your own company is suddenly becoming very clear.
captained
· 2 years ago
Shawna,
Thank you for writing such a thoughtful and interesting post. It was my pleasure to put it on its own. I think the WG should have had you writing for Newsweek ...
abw
· 2 years ago
Shawna is an artful writer and nevermind Newsweek, someone in Hwood needs to wake up. Er, once the strike is over of course.
Just Me
· 2 years ago
The entertainment industry is really like no other industry in the U.S. -- the unions exist because it is one of the few businesses that people will do whatever it takes to try to break into -- people move to Los Angeles or New York with the dream of being an actor, a writer or a director. If there was no union, the economics would push downward -- there are so many aspirants trying to get in, they would take far less than the minimums to get a chance at writing at all. Already there are grave concerns about "scabs" in the industry -- there are so many writers who are not in the guild who would risk future earnings for the ability to write something today.
And my thoughts at this is what is really so bad about this?
I am not convinced this is a bad thing, and I am actually kind of troubled by the idea that the unions are there to keep the competition out of the industry.
I do think there is a good arguement for how the industry should handle payment for work with regard to the internet, but the internet has thrown a lot of rings into the whole entertainment circus-the record industry still hasn't figured out how to deal with the internet market.
But I admit in general I still don't care. This strike will affect me very little-I watch very little TV and very few movies unlike strikes in other areas. So I guess there are issues to be worked out, but it isn't something I am convinced should be all that important to me.
nooneatall
· 2 years ago
Does anyone else suspect the writers might be more amenable if they were not so isrespected in Hollywood? Where everyone uses their product and disses them on it and gives them no respect? Where the director is hailed and lauded and paid grotesque amounts of money (and sometimes reviled and hated and still paid gritesque amounts of money) but never forgotten? Does anyone ever thank the writers for a snappy piece of dialogue? Or a fascinating plot? Or deep characterization? No - it's always the writers or actors or even the SFX guys. Yet isn't it odd how they so rarely do anything without the lowly writers? Occaisionally a director or producer tries their hand at it, but they usually have help.
PD Quig
· 2 years ago
I'm sure that there are legitimate issues at stake here, but I blew right on by them anyway. Whomever is getting screwed here, the whole industry is a piece of s**t and deserves to die an unpleasant death. It would have done so decades ago if it depended upon revenues from me. Play with your kids, talk to your spouse, say some prayers, get some exercise, pick up a book, log on--starve an actor. It will be better for both of you in the long run.
COgirl
· 2 years ago
Confession: This is not a subject I really care much about, but I have to add my 2 cents worth.
I rarely watch anything on tv. There are a couple of series that I find entertaining on network tv, but that's it. I don't go to the movies because I absolutely despise the political messages and I don't want to use my hard earned money to line anyone's pocket, especially anyone who is so anti-America.
This is a supply and demand situation. I don't demand anything from the writers or Hollywood and the bountiful supply of writers is trying to take a piece of the non-existent or low demand "pie". If we were talking about the price of gasoline being driven down by lack of demand, no one would give a damn. I don't really care about this either.
When I see some quality products coming out of Hollywood, then I might listen. But what comes out these days is crap, plain and simple. I'll watch reruns of shows from long ago.
das411
· 2 years ago
Shawna, thank you for your posts and for explaining this situation as well as you have. I hope this strike helps both sides adjust to the new marketplace as well as the MLB strike of 1994-95 ultimately did, even if it does take missing one of your "World Series" (sweeps, finales, etc) for everybody to realize just how much can be gained by working with instead of against each other...
DwightKSchrute
· 2 years ago
Shawna,
I would like you to pose a question. Why should television writers get residuals and not television ad copywriters?
Television shows are run off ad revenue. That's basically how everyone involved including the writers get paid. And it's certainly what drives the residual payments television writers get. Yet the advertising copywriters that create the ads that create all this money don't get residuals for the "intellectual property" they've produced. A wildly creative and popular ad for Coca-Cola can run thousands of times across network and cable pumping money into the coffers of the studio, SAG, WGA, etc. and what does the writer that wrote this creative, entertaining item get? They get exactly the salary or project fee their employer at the ad agency paid them for doing their job and writing the ad.
You say "If there was no union, the economics would push downward" but advertising copywriters are not unionized and they still get paid very reasonable wages. If, as you claim, you are a supporter of free markets then wouldn't it make sense that if a writer possessed skills that studios couldn't find anywhere else then that writer would be in demand and be compensated accordingly? So, once again, why should television writers be different?
Stephen J.
· 2 years ago
Advertising copywriters don't get residuals because by definition the agency doesn't own the IP rights to the promotional piece they create; the employer owns those, and pays the agency for their work. (Actors, by contrast, get residuals from commercial replays all the time, because the company cannot buy IP rights to the actors' likeness.) Bear in mind that promotional pieces -- ads, commercials, jingles, etc. -- often have no commercial value whatsoever divorced from their product; it's very hard to simply "file off the serial numbers" on a commercial jingle and make it work equally well anywhere else for any other product. In addition, commercials aren't a draw in themselves for their own sake.
Film and TV screenwriters, by contrast, are developing wholly original stories that retain their value regardless of which studio buys them or (if appropriately matched to genre) which show they're written for; they are also the principal product being marketed in themselves, as opposed to simply a promotion for some other product -- a network lives or dies by how well its shows succeed. They are also almost always the product of far more work on behalf of far fewer people -- entire teams work for a few months on a series of commercials; one person can work for over a year on a film screenplay. And their rerun value to the network is far greater than a particular commercial rerun's value is to an advertiser.
My sister works in advertising and my mother-in-law is a professional actress, so I have some familiarity with these industries.
teqjack
· 2 years ago
I do think the writers have a point, if money is being made they should probably be in on it. But that should have been in their contract[s].
Not that a contract is much of a guarantee - http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:rGVZmMLxcT... ... "James Garner, who played a detective in the TV show ' The Rockford Files ', agreed to be paid through residuals instead of by episode. He signed a contract to do a set amount of shows. He was paid a pittance during the shows run. When the time came for the residuals to come in, creative bookkeeping kept Garner from collecting a cent, yet, The Rockford Files are still showing re-runs and making money for the studios. "
Christoph
· 2 years ago
Excellent post, Ed. I tend to agree with Shawna Benson, Jay Leno, Jon Stewart, and others who are supporting the writers. Certainly they have the right to strike and/or negotiate the best possible deal form themselves. And to take one point from her excellent summary, for the networks to call online streaming broadcast -- the main way I watch all content including entertainment -- "promotional", but report it to their shareholders as profitable, is obscene.
Doug
· 2 years ago
Hi,
One guy who designed the cars for the Spielberg hit movie "Minority Report" explained to me that the production owns the rights to all of his work product, even rough sketches. His rights to the product terminate when he signs his deal memo. If you've seen the movie, you know the concept designers contributed as much to that story as the writing. It's a truism in the film industry that editors have the last rewrite. Should editors be clamoring for a slice of this expanding pie? I read lots of good blogs, like this one. CQ deserves a share of the wealth! Fair's fair!
Count to 10
· 2 years ago
I have a question. Why aren't individual studios (or projects, for that mater) making individual contracts with individual writers? Why are there only two sides to this? Okay, that was two. Also, if you are looking for movies with more conservative themes, try Pixar. Even the "Ratatooli" movie about a Rat and French food has conservative themes.
Loren
· 2 years ago
Whatever they agree on is up to them, but since the writers are not working on spec, but either under contract or on salary, I really don't see why there should be any tails on the revenue stream.
My company makes a product that our clients use multiple times. It is custom designed and fabricated in each instance, but we get paid once, at the intial purchase. After that the buyer can use it once or a thousand times. My company doesn't get paid any more on that item.
The producers or investors are the ones speculating on success/failure of the project. The writers/lighting guys/set builders/caterers/costumers/camerapersons/grips/gaffers/best boys/etc. all get paid at the time of production. It just seems like it is work for contract.
That said, if the producers/investors want to give some of the revenue tails away, it is certainly up to them. But I really don't care too much for either side.
KauaiBoy1960
· 2 years ago
I would have sympathy for them if they managed to produce a good product but the crap on TV (reality TV, PC sitcoms, etc) and the lack of creativity in movies (let's remake a classic with today's hot young actors and actresses) doesn't warrant serious attention.
Only One Cannoli
· 2 years ago
I don't know the nickel and dimes of the issue but my sympathy is with the tv and film writers.
Here's an interesting story about the concentration of wealth among a handful of people associated with making a movie -- the actors, producers and the director ... but generally not the writer. There is a select group that gets a piece of the gross profits for a film and it rarely (if ever) includes the people most responsible for the foundation of a movie which is the story.
Look at the crap that Hollywood usually puts out and ask yourself why it has to be this way. Tom Cruise gets 20 million because the public knows his name ... he's a marketable product whose value is based on name recognition, good looks, and, on occasion, average acting ability (he was decent in parts of The Firm). I love watching great actors and it's great that some of them can win the lottery and make millions but the actors are there to help tell a story and without a writer you haven't got a story to tell!
Maybe the so-called studio system was unfair to the creative people but at least the studios looked down on actors and writers a little more equally. And some classic movies (Casablanca) came out of that system. Now, image is what's oh so important.
I remember watching Steven Speilberg at a televised awards show maybe 10 years ago talking about the importance of returning to the written word and how Hollywood has to revere the writer. Apparently, no one was listening. Today the star, director and producers get the best deal while they hire someone on the cheap to do the writing for the umpteenth sequel to a movie based on a popular video game.
Sad.
Incognito
· 2 years ago
I love the cavalier way so many people here dismiss "artists" as irrelevant, by intimating we should get other jobs if we don't like the money. If all of us chose (I'm an actress) to get out of the business because it wasn't lucrative, the bulk of your viewing pleasure would be reality shows. I'm sure you woul all get very sick of that, eventually. As with most of the entertainment unions.. the bulk of the members can't even make a living wage. We deserve the pittance that we get from residuals. The producers are balking now because the directors and actors contracts are up for negotiation soon. And I can guarantee that the other 2 Unions will not hesitate to go on strike, as well, if they don't get some concessions met. The main issue is internet. We deserve a miniscule piece of that pie. You can watch almost any show on the internet now, and we get zippo. That is not fair.
DwightKSchrute
· 2 years ago
Once again, even with internet, why should the people that write the creative content get residuals when the people that write the creative ads that actually provide the money for the residuals do not?
Just Me
· 2 years ago
If all of us chose (I'm an actress) to get out of the business because it wasn't lucrative, the bulk of your viewing pleasure would be reality shows.
Not me so much.
I watch very little TV and see very few movies. Most of the shows I watch are on BBC America-and it isn't that much.
I think some of the original shows on Sci-Fi might be missed, but not enough to make me feel overly bored or missing anything major.
Most TV is junk-I don't think there is a single show on network TV I watch. Maybe if TV started writing stuff that was good again, I might get suckered back in, but honestly right now I would much rather read a book.
unclesmrgol
· 2 years ago
I saw their side of the story when they picketed outside my workplace (an aerospace building being used for filming). To a person, they showed up in separately driven late model BMW SUVs. A person who drives a BMW SUV is, in my estimation, really well paid. I drive a two year old Mazda 3; before that a 20 year old Honda Accord.
I was really tempted to go over and ask if I could get a writer's job -- I'm sure it pays better than what I do now....
My point: I have better places to put my money than into the pockets of people who drive nicer cars than I do. I don't own the software I write for my boss -- and they shouldn't own the stuff they write for theirs.
Jaeger51
· 2 years ago
Hear hear, Naftali! It's hard to care about this issue...it's been years since I watched any TV except NFL football without thinking how annoying and stupid the shows were...they even look bad in the previews! And most modern movies...well, after you start off by redoing a sitcom from the 60s and the goal seems to be the largest possible explosion...and leftish social engineering..well, I don't like the writers OR the studio heads. How ABOUT an alternative Hollywood? It's not like the real one is having all hits lately...where's the next Saving Private Ryan?
DayTrader
· 2 years ago
If there are so many writers that so few paid efforts than that sounds like their is a glut of writers in the good old supply and demand curve thing.
Personally I understand their desires, but for me it is a non issue.
It has been years since I have watched TV and the only movies I watch are mostly classics which are out of the royalty stream in any event.
I know writers have to pitch what the studios want to buy, but still till something is done to improve the trash quality of most programing I say a pox on all your houses.
John Adams
· 2 years ago
The National Labor Relations Act was created for the express purpose, in its own words, of “encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining”. The same is true of Canada’s Labor Relations Acts, which mirror the U.S Act. Please note that these Acts were created for Collective Bargaining purposes, not for the negotiation of compensation by individuals. In 99% of all current North American negotiations, the intent and purpose of the Labor Relations Acts are carried out in the manner intended by the original legislation. That is, groups of employees in the same occupation have their union negotiate rates of pay, benefits, and working conditions for them. Few in our North American society have any problem with this system, even though it is dying, as only 12% of the American workforce is still unionized.
There is only one area of the labor force where the entire intent of the Labor Relations Acts has become completely perverted, totally beyond the original intent of all North American Labor legislation. This, of course, is in the area of entertainment, where many of the so-called “union members” are wealthy, if not outright millionaires! This includes people in professional sports, radio and TV, and the film industry. In a ghastly parody of real collective bargaining, many “unionized” members in the entertainment field sit with their personal lawyers and negotiate personal compensation packages with their employers, which are then rubber stamped by their “union”. To pretend that this is, in any way, collective bargaining is a grotesque farce! Even the miserable “New Deal” political hack, Representative Wagner, who fronted the National Labor Relations Act for Roosevelt, would be shocked and scandalized by this bizarre turn of events! My God, even Bill O’Rielly is a union member (of course, he has no choice in the matter). Anyone who has any sympathy for so-called “unionized” workers in the entertainment industry are fools of the first rank! No doubt they all welcomed the opportunity to go out and walk the picket line for a year in support of all the millionaire players in the NHL!
KendraWilder
· 2 years ago
Captain Ed wrote: "However, I'm having a great deal of trouble sympathizing with either side of this dispute, considering the volume of revenue this industry generates now and will in the future. It seems that neither side has reasonable people working on a rational method of compensation, and the strike is a failure by both sides to split an avalanche of cash."
My own opinion takes a completely different tack, as it were. ;-}
My opinion is based on the concept of creative rights. If I write a book, and copyright the work, and market and sell the story in print form, then I own the copyrights to that piece until the copyright laws expire those rights, or until I sell those rights to others, or sell components of those rights such as screen rights or international magazine rights, etc.
However, in the case of writers-for-hire, the entire concept is altered. If I have a storyline that I want fleshed out into a full script for TV or movie production, then I hire writers to flesh out the storyline. However, the original concept is copyrighted to me, or to the production entity that owns those rights. For these screen writers to expect residuals on an idea/concept/storyline/creation that was not originally their creation is, to me, simply wrong.
Let's use, just for the sake of comparison, Post-It Notes. The corporation which created and produced the completely, smashingly successful product line known as Post-It Notes owns the rights to the invention of the special glue which makes the notes so highly functional and useful for both private consumer and business needs. It has likely generated hundreds of millions in profits by now for the company, 3M. Same scenario with other inventions created for or sold to other companies.
But the special glue was an invention and creation of one of the 3M R&D employees, and proved to be a highly successful new product line. Yet as 3M's employee, all rights related to products developed for 3M belong to 3M, with no "residuals" paid to the employee(s) involved in their development. I'm not familiar with patent laws, but until whatever time those patents expire, 3M owns all rights. The employee had been hired to do the work involving product development, and had agreed to the wages and benefits 3M was paying for the work. That was all the compensation to which that employee was entitled.
The same thing with pharmaceuticals. Once a new drug or other medication is developed by a pharmaceutical company, that company has exclusive rights to the production and distribution of that drug until the patent expires, at which point other pharmaceutical companies can step in and start manufacturing generic forms of the drug.
Back to creative rights: there are songs which are now being used freely without paying royalties to the original songwriters. Do you think the opening instrumental theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey" was written and created for that movie? No. The producers chose a classical piece on which the creative copyrights had expired eons ago: Johann Strauss II's most famous waltz, On The Beautiful Blue Danube. No residuals nor royalties were paid to any descendant of Johann Strauss, for sure. For that matter, The orchestra used to interpret and produce Strauss' incredibly moving music didn't receive residuals, either.
Do you see where this is going? At what point do rights to creative writing kick in when the actual storyline concept was someone else's, who sold those rights to a production company which now hires writers to flesh out the storyline into production scripts? In the case of writing for comedians such as Jay Leno, the scenario alters slightly in that the jokes must be original. But just like 3M which hires people for specific wages to develop new product lines, the comedians and/or production companies hire people to develop new joke lines, and they're compensated with wages accordingly.
Having worked in the TV entertainment industry, I have a real hard time with script writers getting more credit than is due, as do I have a problem with janitors receiving Oscars.
My favorite example given to a former employee under my supervision:
Look at a movie or TV production's credits. Everyone is named from producer to director to actors and actresses to gaffers to craft servers, on and on. That's akin to my receiving my monthly bank statement with pages attached listing all of the bank employees who had anything at all to do with the servicing and maintainance of my bank account, including the bank president, the tellers, the auditors, the accountants, the janitors, on and on.
Somewhere along the way common sense and reason were pitched into the ashheap of by-gone Hollywood eras, leaving a bunch of spoiled rotten, greedy, bickering people who, if they don't like the work or don't like the wages paid for the work, ought to get the heck out of the way and let others who not only would appreciate the work but desperately need it as well, take their places.
Just my two cents world. :-/
Dark Rain
· 2 years ago
Gee, people. Being a little harsh aren't we? I don't like unions either; but the writers do have legitimate issues. The attitude for many of you seems to be "if you don't like what they pay you, get out"--and you wonder why so much out of Hollywood is *crap*. A free market doesn't mean how much is paid is a one-way transaction: negotiation is often at the heart of free markets. As with any job or profession, you could just say “love it or go elsewhere"--or you could try to make it better.
That being said, it does seem that there is a very possibility this strike could blow up in the writers' faces. The aim may be worthy but the tactic could saw them off at the knees. More than once have I seen unionized workers essentially vote themselves out of a job. If the last strike resulted in the "reality" television shows, this strike may reduce programming to watching the stars playing poker or video games.
davod
· 2 years ago
Captain:
A very good article.
I have been surprised at the lack of perspective of the commentary on the normal media and most of the Blogworld.. If part of the normal compensation was a residual element then it seems reasonable that tghe residual should be carried over to new methods selling the product.
leishman
· 2 years ago
OK--first, eliminate all greed/envy from the discussion--no consideration of rich studio executives, writers driving BMW SUVs, poor-struggling-writers, etc. Second, eliminate any Hollywood-makes-trash ideas from the discussion. What's left? A dispute over payment for services/creative ideas. If the writers want to join a union, negotiate collectively within the law, go on strike--fine. It's a business arrangement that one or both sides wish to influence. Fortunately we live in a relatively free and capitalist world, and I'm sure they'll work something out. Noone has a biological need to watch TV, and so the length of the strike does not affect the health or safety of society or individuals; there are many other creative media (books, the internet, movies) for those with an appetite for story-telling. My sympathy lies with neither side, as I am not a consumer of televised shows. Let them work it out, and if the product costs are passed on to the viewer, the marketplace will work it out as well. Perhaps the "drama" associated with the strike is a reflection of the people in the trade!
abw
· 2 years ago
I'm still stuck on the first post where home video sales generate $24 billion in a year and writers get $72 million. 1% of the sale would be $2.4 billion, 0.1% is $240 million so from these figures writers get less than 0.03%.
Whether the writers and directors and everyone else is getting more or less is interesting and useful for debate, is three-hundredths of a percent really fair?
John Q.
· 2 years ago
"The $200,000 average is a misleading indicator of most writers. There are 12,000 Writers Guild members (and I'm not one of them), The MEAN income of a guild member is $4,000 a year. "
AVERAGE and MEAN mean the same thing! I think you mean MEDIAN!
stew
· 2 years ago
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curt shorter
· 1 year ago
A script is not at all like a novel or a song - it is a blue print for a venture that involves an enormous amount of capital input and the collective effort of hundreds of people to turn into entertainment.
Carol_Herman
· 2 years ago
Consider this: Irving Berlin's estate does not see a plug nickel, every time you sing A White Christmas. Or, America The Beautiful. (Okay. My titles can be off.)
Pretty much, before recording devices; all the stuff that got sung ... was also sold as sheet music, for a penny a piece. So? Lots of Americans paid the penny. And, sang the songs around their own pianos. Yup. Long before TV, that's how people got entertained. AND, that's how songwriters made money. On the penny. They didn't go into living rooms to charge "pennies" once the music got distributed. You could call that "river" FREEDOM. Hard to put up toll booths.
And one reason, now, the writer's strike makes no sense, is that there's "NO" pot from which to withdraw this money. Are you surprised? All the money that can ever flow into "the pot" goes to the producers. (The same guys that get the sex from the beautiful girls who come to hollywood to be "discovered." And, rarely find happiness.)
Of course, the writers WANT!
Too bad the whole world of "copyright" ... which started ... back in England ... Around 1709. With the first book every written for it: ROBINSON CRUSOE.
Sure, time limits hang on the copyright device. (Which Walt Disney, using his own clout, got to protect for a large chunk of time.) But Walt's ONE MAN. And, a bunch of writers can duplicate that kind of clout.
So? Writers will be out of work for awhile. Arguing about money they can't even find. Since, as I said, it's the producers. Then, the directors. And, then the top talent. That make off with the big bucks.
No. Hollywood wasn't always this way. At one time? The talent was poorly treated. Humphrey Bogart and Ronald Reagan got involved. And, put a stop to not "showing respect" to the faces the public came to see as the "owners."
Writers? Nothing today even bears an imprimature ... like it did in the old days. Where you knew who wrote ROBINSON CRUSOE. Just as you know who wrote Harry Potter. (And, she was smart! Because she never released control on her gold mine. When she had a lot less money. But she didn't let anyone else carry it to the bank.)
Why do people strike? To hide the fact that some of them were out of work, anyway?
All Comments
At the same time, the creatives are willing to take a lower initial payment in return for the possibility of greater future returns if the product is successful.
Thus, there is nothing nefarious about residuals. They are a recognition that some creative products have more success than others.
The real problem comes when a studio or other licensee wants to use the product(s) of artist A to promote the product of artist B, or simply to promote the studio itself. It is easier to look at the example of record companies, although the principle is the same in film/TV media.
Imagine, for example, that Capitol Records wants to promote a new artist by inducing major record stores to put this artist's records in a prominent position in the store, or put up display windows for the new artist on the outside of the store. The record company could pay cash to the store as a promotional fee. More convenient for the record company, however, would be to provide free CDs from their most popular catalog artists, such as The Beatles or The Beach Boys, to the record store. This way, the record store gets one hundred percent profit on each Beatles or Beach Boys CD it sells, so it acts as a subsidy to the record store. From the artist's perspective (that is, The Beatles or The Beach Boys), this provision of "promotional" CDs to the record store (a) does not benefit those artists at all -- they have no reason to care if the new artist's product sells or not, and (b) generates zero royalties, because this free product is accounted to them as "promotional." (I litigated a lengthy case involving these precise issues a number of years ago.)
Moving to the present context: In the same way. NBC and others want to stream their programming on the web as "promotional" in order to reap side benefits that they believe will accrue to them, perhaps web advertising, perhaps something else not yet invented. They essentially want to "buy" their online audience without paying anything more to the creatives. Admittedly, the value of what is being bought cannot easily be measured at this point in time, and it might be that it is a terrible investment. But the writers and other creatives believe that the online uses must have some kind of value, and the argument is about how to put some kind of valuation on the use.
There is also uncertainty about downloadable film/TV product that uses high-speed broadband as a substitute for physical possession of a DVD or other media. It is foreseeable that this kind of electronic delivery will become more prevalent in the next 5+ years. The writers and other creatives want to at least hold their ground, if not improve it, with this kind of delivery in comparison to the current formulae for VHS and DVD home video formats.
VG
I don't think the writer's are asking for your sympathy. They're asking you to see their side of the story, which it seems you do.
Because there is a lot of money in this industry, does that mean writers don't have the right to try and receive a fair compensation of that money? I really don't understand how the amount of money in the industry would impact whether or not you think the writers are getting their fair share. Because there's a lot of money in the industry, should writer's settle for less than they think they deserve?
Any professional has a right to ensure they are getting paid fairly for their work. This is what this strike is about. And all this ambivelance and "i could care less about this" is more about anti-Hollywood stentiment that many on the right have than about the actual issues of the strike.
The point I want to emphasize is that residuals are very important to a writer: if you're not on staff at a long-running, successful show, then residuals are all you may have between sales. They might be your sole income for a year or more while you try to make another sale or get hired on another staff. WGA made a big mistake regarding residuals and electronic rights twenty years ago; now their descendants are trying to rectify that mistake and make sure it doesn't happen again.
The ones acting in bad faith here are the studios (and the corporations that own them). They welshed on the deal they made in 1985 (to make the cut in video residuals temporary), and now they want to pay almost nothing for new media, which they are on record saying they will themselves make billions from. (There's a clip of Sumner Redstone on one of the financial shows gloating over how much they'll make from the Internet.) Given that writers depend on royalties, I don't call AMPTP's offers a good faith attempt to split the pie at all.
Like I wrote, I'm not a knee-jerk supporter of unions by any means, but even a union can be right. In this case, WGA is much more right than AMPTP or their corporate masters.
Bypass the old distribution networks. It seems to work for Amazon.
Heck, I'll even give you another couple of hints: R rated movies don't do especially well at the box office. It's not a good business model to ensure that part of your customer base cannot buy your product. Think family entertainment.
Next hint: How many times have you seen the comments on this blog bemoaning the lack of patriotic films showing the US military in a more realistic and virtuous light. Do you suppose there might be a market for something that does not trash or insult our country, males, religion, and every accent and location between the coasts?
I missed the memo about nobody else being allowed to make a movie or a TV series. We've got money to spend. We've got cable and DVD players.
It *can* seem reasonable, but you're forgetting that an actor is compensated for every episode in which he appears (anywhere from 22-25 episodes for a regular, 8-12 or more for a recurring character), whereas a writer is only compensated for the episodes he has formal writing credit on (as noted by Shawna, an individual writer often gets no more than 2-3 scripts a season, if that). The money still doesn't favour the writers.
Like Super Chicken always told Fred, "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it"
How hard would it be to write an episode of any one of the CSI shows (particularly the one set in Miami). Come up with how the body was found, how the victim was killed, and what telling piece of DNA evidence the investigator finds looking through a car with an electron microscope and processes in 30 seconds. Throw in a few stage directions to tell David Carusso when to tilt his head and put on his sunglasses and you've got a show.
Yes, tv writing is creative (though the evidence is often microscopic) but to compare filling in the blanks on a template with creating an original novel is a bit of stretch.
It seems as if the entire culture out there is completely out of touch with the world. On the one hand, they churn out product that most people do not like. They churn it out because they feel it is their divine calling to question values, shock, and show us our own stupidity--all in a shallow and stereotyped way. And now we are supposed to care about this industry and potential troubles it has. This can only happen in a Hollywood script, where people act a certain way because the writer or producer wants it to happen--'okay, so then we strike, and the nation rallies to our cause because we're, like, oppressed people everywhere. And then the producers will see the errors of their ways and become the kindhearted people they really want to be deep inside. And cut to the final kiss'.
I've said this before on this site. A parallel Hollywood needs to grow, and what better time to start it? There needs to be a media and mass culture produced that reflect the way people feel, and has some care for truth and accuracy, and whose writers' create with real feeling and an eye towards quality. I see sparks of this in the blogosphere, I see no reason why it can't grow into a larger industry in another part of the country. The technology is becoming increasing decentralized--that is, what were the chances of a blog and forum like this popping up in a major newspaper in the 1970s. It was impossible.
The creative writers need to be a little more creative.
Given the "share-the-wealth" mentality, please advise what amounts they paid to the carpenters, architects, contractors for their own housing-? What do they propose to pay to the workers, who assembled their cars, the designers, the mechanics for their automobiles-? We have seen the value of Mercedes Gullwings, Dusenbergs, and others reach atsronomical proportions in the Barrett-Jackson auctions, yet there is no word of residuals for the people who brought it into being-?
Therea are risks of developing new ideas in medicine. Yet, the companies who fund the risk are given only a limited and finite period of protection and then their efforts can be taken without payment by anyone.
Why is the crafting of words so important that the marketplace must be suspended-? Why do medicines , houses, cars, and many other important innovations get only a limited period of reward in comparison-?
Creating new beneficiaries of success while insulating them from the risks creates a marketplace that has never been successful. It can only work, even for a limited period, when there is an enclosed environment with limited and restricted entry. However that does not produce innovation or efficiency...
The Marketplace works.
I have one clarification and one other point to make, based on some of the other comments here.
First off, the 4 cents which has been bandied about is actually the amount based on a percentage. It is not a flat 4 cents. The actual amount of DVD residuals is .03%. It has always been a percentage, so, writers residuals decrease with prices.
The reason I think this strike is more signficant than say, a railroad strike, is that it isn't just about labor. This is about intellectual property. As a supporter of free markets, I completely understand and am largely sympathetic to the argument that writers should be paid what they can get. The entertainment industry is really like no other industry in the U.S. -- the unions exist because it is one of the few businesses that people will do whatever it takes to try to break into -- people move to Los Angeles or New York with the dream of being an actor, a writer or a director. If there was no union, the economics would push downward -- there are so many aspirants trying to get in, they would take far less than the minimums to get a chance at writing at all. Already there are grave concerns about "scabs" in the industry -- there are so many writers who are not in the guild who would risk future earnings for the ability to write something today.
And as for getting another job...would you tell someone who wanted to become a world-class watchmaker to get another job? Would you tell a person writing a novel to get a real job? Writing is not easy. I work my 40 hour 'day job' and then go home and spend another 4 hours a night writing. I would hope that even bloggers would know that writing is one of those skills (and yes, it's a skill) that is easier said than done.
Again, I thank everyone for the insightful debate.
It should be said that this is probably the beginning of a major shift in how scripted entertainment is created and distributed. I'm not saying we should hold on to the old ways of doing things. In fact, if anyone wants to offer up some venture capital on a couple of scripted series ideas I have, I'd be happy to discuss a new online content creation and distribution model. No takers? *sigh* Then I guess I'll have to wait this thing out and hope the studios are still buying tv pilots...
It's sad to see the "traditional" means of programming go the way of the dinosaur. It's also exciting to realize all of the new opportunities that are out there. Personally, I'm trying to take advantage of the new opportunities (I am actually producing my own web series right now) without the need of the union. But if I want a large audience to see my work TODAY...it's the studio / union system or nothing. Sad truth.
H/T to Belmont Club for linking to Marc Anderssen's post on the future of the Entertainment Industry
Thank you for writing such a thoughtful and interesting post. It was my pleasure to put it on its own. I think the WG should have had you writing for Newsweek ...
And my thoughts at this is what is really so bad about this?
I am not convinced this is a bad thing, and I am actually kind of troubled by the idea that the unions are there to keep the competition out of the industry.
I do think there is a good arguement for how the industry should handle payment for work with regard to the internet, but the internet has thrown a lot of rings into the whole entertainment circus-the record industry still hasn't figured out how to deal with the internet market.
But I admit in general I still don't care. This strike will affect me very little-I watch very little TV and very few movies unlike strikes in other areas. So I guess there are issues to be worked out, but it isn't something I am convinced should be all that important to me.
I rarely watch anything on tv. There are a couple of series that I find entertaining on network tv, but that's it. I don't go to the movies because I absolutely despise the political messages and I don't want to use my hard earned money to line anyone's pocket, especially anyone who is so anti-America.
This is a supply and demand situation. I don't demand anything from the writers or Hollywood and the bountiful supply of writers is trying to take a piece of the non-existent or low demand "pie". If we were talking about the price of gasoline being driven down by lack of demand, no one would give a damn. I don't really care about this either.
When I see some quality products coming out of Hollywood, then I might listen. But what comes out these days is crap, plain and simple. I'll watch reruns of shows from long ago.
I would like you to pose a question. Why should television writers get residuals and not television ad copywriters?
Television shows are run off ad revenue. That's basically how everyone involved including the writers get paid. And it's certainly what drives the residual payments television writers get. Yet the advertising copywriters that create the ads that create all this money don't get residuals for the "intellectual property" they've produced. A wildly creative and popular ad for Coca-Cola can run thousands of times across network and cable pumping money into the coffers of the studio, SAG, WGA, etc. and what does the writer that wrote this creative, entertaining item get? They get exactly the salary or project fee their employer at the ad agency paid them for doing their job and writing the ad.
You say "If there was no union, the economics would push downward" but advertising copywriters are not unionized and they still get paid very reasonable wages. If, as you claim, you are a supporter of free markets then wouldn't it make sense that if a writer possessed skills that studios couldn't find anywhere else then that writer would be in demand and be compensated accordingly? So, once again, why should television writers be different?
Film and TV screenwriters, by contrast, are developing wholly original stories that retain their value regardless of which studio buys them or (if appropriately matched to genre) which show they're written for; they are also the principal product being marketed in themselves, as opposed to simply a promotion for some other product -- a network lives or dies by how well its shows succeed. They are also almost always the product of far more work on behalf of far fewer people -- entire teams work for a few months on a series of commercials; one person can work for over a year on a film screenplay. And their rerun value to the network is far greater than a particular commercial rerun's value is to an advertiser.
My sister works in advertising and my mother-in-law is a professional actress, so I have some familiarity with these industries.
Not that a contract is much of a guarantee -
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:rGVZmMLxcT...
... "James Garner, who played a detective in the TV show ' The Rockford Files ', agreed to be paid through residuals instead of by episode. He signed a contract to do a set amount of shows. He was paid a pittance during the shows run. When the time came for the residuals to come in, creative bookkeeping kept Garner from collecting a cent, yet, The Rockford Files are still showing re-runs and making money for the studios. "
One guy who designed the cars for the Spielberg hit movie "Minority Report" explained to me that the production owns the rights to all of his work product, even rough sketches. His rights to the product terminate when he signs his deal memo. If you've seen the movie, you know the concept designers contributed as much to that story as the writing. It's a truism in the film industry that editors have the last rewrite. Should editors be clamoring for a slice of this expanding pie? I read lots of good blogs, like this one. CQ deserves a share of the wealth! Fair's fair!
Why aren't individual studios (or projects, for that mater) making individual contracts with individual writers?
Why are there only two sides to this?
Okay, that was two.
Also, if you are looking for movies with more conservative themes, try Pixar. Even the "Ratatooli" movie about a Rat and French food has conservative themes.
My company makes a product that our clients use multiple times. It is custom designed and fabricated in each instance, but we get paid once, at the intial purchase. After that the buyer can use it once or a thousand times. My company doesn't get paid any more on that item.
The producers or investors are the ones speculating on success/failure of the project. The writers/lighting guys/set builders/caterers/costumers/camerapersons/grips/gaffers/best boys/etc. all get paid at the time of production. It just seems like it is work for contract.
That said, if the producers/investors want to give some of the revenue tails away, it is certainly up to them. But I really don't care too much for either side.
Here's an interesting story about the concentration of wealth among a handful of people associated with making a movie -- the actors, producers and the director ... but generally not the writer. There is a select group that gets a piece of the gross profits for a film and it rarely (if ever) includes the people most responsible for the foundation of a movie which is the story.
Look at the crap that Hollywood usually puts out and ask yourself why it has to be this way. Tom Cruise gets 20 million because the public knows his name ... he's a marketable product whose value is based on name recognition, good looks, and, on occasion, average acting ability (he was decent in parts of The Firm). I love watching great actors and it's great that some of them can win the lottery and make millions but the actors are there to help tell a story and without a writer you haven't got a story to tell!
Maybe the so-called studio system was unfair to the creative people but at least the studios looked down on actors and writers a little more equally. And some classic movies (Casablanca) came out of that system. Now, image is what's oh so important.
I remember watching Steven Speilberg at a televised awards show maybe 10 years ago talking about the importance of returning to the written word and how Hollywood has to revere the writer. Apparently, no one was listening. Today the star, director and producers get the best deal while they hire someone on the cheap to do the writing for the umpteenth sequel to a movie based on a popular video game.
Sad.
The producers are balking now because the directors and actors contracts are up for negotiation soon. And I can guarantee that the other 2 Unions will not hesitate to go on strike, as well, if they don't get some concessions met. The main issue is internet. We deserve a miniscule piece of that pie. You can watch almost any show on the internet now, and we get zippo. That is not fair.
Not me so much.
I watch very little TV and see very few movies. Most of the shows I watch are on BBC America-and it isn't that much.
I think some of the original shows on Sci-Fi might be missed, but not enough to make me feel overly bored or missing anything major.
Most TV is junk-I don't think there is a single show on network TV I watch. Maybe if TV started writing stuff that was good again, I might get suckered back in, but honestly right now I would much rather read a book.
I was really tempted to go over and ask if I could get a writer's job -- I'm sure it pays better than what I do now....
My point: I have better places to put my money than into the pockets of people who drive nicer cars than I do. I don't own the software I write for my boss -- and they shouldn't own the stuff they write for theirs.
Personally I understand their desires, but for me it is a non issue.
It has been years since I have watched TV and the only movies I watch are mostly classics which are out of the royalty stream in any event.
I know writers have to pitch what the studios want to buy, but still till something is done to improve the trash quality of most programing I say a pox on all your houses.
There is only one area of the labor force where the entire intent of the Labor Relations Acts has become completely perverted, totally beyond the original intent of all North American Labor legislation. This, of course, is in the area of entertainment, where many of the so-called “union members” are wealthy, if not outright millionaires! This includes people in professional sports, radio and TV, and the film industry. In a ghastly parody of real collective bargaining, many “unionized” members in the entertainment field sit with their personal lawyers and negotiate personal compensation packages with their employers, which are then rubber stamped by their “union”. To pretend that this is, in any way, collective bargaining is a grotesque farce! Even the miserable “New Deal” political hack, Representative Wagner, who fronted the National Labor Relations Act for Roosevelt, would be shocked and scandalized by this bizarre turn of events! My God, even Bill O’Rielly is a union member (of course, he has no choice in the matter). Anyone who has any sympathy for so-called “unionized” workers in the entertainment industry are fools of the first rank! No doubt they all welcomed the opportunity to go out and walk the picket line for a year in support of all the millionaire players in the NHL!
My own opinion takes a completely different tack, as it were. ;-}
My opinion is based on the concept of creative rights. If I write a book, and copyright the work, and market and sell the story in print form, then I own the copyrights to that piece until the copyright laws expire those rights, or until I sell those rights to others, or sell components of those rights such as screen rights or international magazine rights, etc.
However, in the case of writers-for-hire, the entire concept is altered. If I have a storyline that I want fleshed out into a full script for TV or movie production, then I hire writers to flesh out the storyline. However, the original concept is copyrighted to me, or to the production entity that owns those rights. For these screen writers to expect residuals on an idea/concept/storyline/creation that was not originally their creation is, to me, simply wrong.
Let's use, just for the sake of comparison, Post-It Notes. The corporation which created and produced the completely, smashingly successful product line known as Post-It Notes owns the rights to the invention of the special glue which makes the notes so highly functional and useful for both private consumer and business needs. It has likely generated hundreds of millions in profits by now for the company, 3M. Same scenario with other inventions created for or sold to other companies.
But the special glue was an invention and creation of one of the 3M R&D employees, and proved to be a highly successful new product line. Yet as 3M's employee, all rights related to products developed for 3M belong to 3M, with no "residuals" paid to the employee(s) involved in their development. I'm not familiar with patent laws, but until whatever time those patents expire, 3M owns all rights. The employee had been hired to do the work involving product development, and had agreed to the wages and benefits 3M was paying for the work. That was all the compensation to which that employee was entitled.
The same thing with pharmaceuticals. Once a new drug or other medication is developed by a pharmaceutical company, that company has exclusive rights to the production and distribution of that drug until the patent expires, at which point other pharmaceutical companies can step in and start manufacturing generic forms of the drug.
Back to creative rights: there are songs which are now being used freely without paying royalties to the original songwriters. Do you think the opening instrumental theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey" was written and created for that movie? No. The producers chose a classical piece on which the creative copyrights had expired eons ago: Johann Strauss II's most famous waltz, On The Beautiful Blue Danube. No residuals nor royalties were paid to any descendant of Johann Strauss, for sure. For that matter, The orchestra used to interpret and produce Strauss' incredibly moving music didn't receive residuals, either.
Do you see where this is going? At what point do rights to creative writing kick in when the actual storyline concept was someone else's, who sold those rights to a production company which now hires writers to flesh out the storyline into production scripts? In the case of writing for comedians such as Jay Leno, the scenario alters slightly in that the jokes must be original. But just like 3M which hires people for specific wages to develop new product lines, the comedians and/or production companies hire people to develop new joke lines, and they're compensated with wages accordingly.
Having worked in the TV entertainment industry, I have a real hard time with script writers getting more credit than is due, as do I have a problem with janitors receiving Oscars.
My favorite example given to a former employee under my supervision:
Look at a movie or TV production's credits. Everyone is named from producer to director to actors and actresses to gaffers to craft servers, on and on. That's akin to my receiving my monthly bank statement with pages attached listing all of the bank employees who had anything at all to do with the servicing and maintainance of my bank account, including the bank president, the tellers, the auditors, the accountants, the janitors, on and on.
Somewhere along the way common sense and reason were pitched into the ashheap of by-gone Hollywood eras, leaving a bunch of spoiled rotten, greedy, bickering people who, if they don't like the work or don't like the wages paid for the work, ought to get the heck out of the way and let others who not only would appreciate the work but desperately need it as well, take their places.
Just my two cents world. :-/
That being said, it does seem that there is a very possibility this strike could blow up in the writers' faces. The aim may be worthy but the tactic could saw them off at the knees. More than once have I seen unionized workers essentially vote themselves out of a job. If the last strike resulted in the "reality" television shows, this strike may reduce programming to watching the stars playing poker or video games.
A very good article.
I have been surprised at the lack of perspective of the commentary on the normal media and most of the Blogworld.. If part of the normal compensation was a residual element then it seems reasonable that tghe residual should be carried over to new methods selling the product.
Whether the writers and directors and everyone else is getting more or less is interesting and useful for debate, is three-hundredths of a percent really fair?
AVERAGE and MEAN mean the same thing! I think you mean MEDIAN!
- Chris Matthews, MSNBC (12/10/07)
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Pretty much, before recording devices; all the stuff that got sung ... was also sold as sheet music, for a penny a piece. So? Lots of Americans paid the penny. And, sang the songs around their own pianos. Yup. Long before TV, that's how people got entertained. AND, that's how songwriters made money. On the penny. They didn't go into living rooms to charge "pennies" once the music got distributed. You could call that "river" FREEDOM. Hard to put up toll booths.
And one reason, now, the writer's strike makes no sense, is that there's "NO" pot from which to withdraw this money. Are you surprised? All the money that can ever flow into "the pot" goes to the producers. (The same guys that get the sex from the beautiful girls who come to hollywood to be "discovered." And, rarely find happiness.)
Of course, the writers WANT!
Too bad the whole world of "copyright" ... which started ... back in England ... Around 1709. With the first book every written for it: ROBINSON CRUSOE.
Sure, time limits hang on the copyright device. (Which Walt Disney, using his own clout, got to protect for a large chunk of time.) But Walt's ONE MAN. And, a bunch of writers can duplicate that kind of clout.
So? Writers will be out of work for awhile. Arguing about money they can't even find. Since, as I said, it's the producers. Then, the directors. And, then the top talent. That make off with the big bucks.
No. Hollywood wasn't always this way. At one time? The talent was poorly treated. Humphrey Bogart and Ronald Reagan got involved. And, put a stop to not "showing respect" to the faces the public came to see as the "owners."
Writers? Nothing today even bears an imprimature ... like it did in the old days. Where you knew who wrote ROBINSON CRUSOE. Just as you know who wrote Harry Potter. (And, she was smart! Because she never released control on her gold mine. When she had a lot less money. But she didn't let anyone else carry it to the bank.)
Why do people strike? To hide the fact that some of them were out of work, anyway?