Captain's Quarters Comments - Latest Comments in Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

curt shorter — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:12:11 -0000

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.

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

John Q. — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:55:36 -0000

"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!

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

abw — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:10:07 -0000

Shawna is an artful writer and nevermind Newsweek, someone in Hwood needs to wake up. Er, once the strike is over of course.

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

abw — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 03:42:26 -0000

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?

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

leishman — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:25:26 -0000

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!

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

davod — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 07:32:47 -0000

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.

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

Dark Rain — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 07:31:18 -0000

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.

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

KendraWilder — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 02:32:37 -0000

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. :-/

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

John Adams — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 01:36:31 -0000

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!

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

DayTrader — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:00:32 -0000

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.

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

Jaeger51 — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 23:43:48 -0000

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?

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

unclesmrgol — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 23:39:54 -0000

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.

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

Just Me — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:54:52 -0000

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.

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

Just Me — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:39:18 -0000

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.

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

DwightKSchrute — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:15:45 -0000

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?

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

Pam — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:57:43 -0000

Then we would find some other form of entertainment and the writer would need to make a living in another field..right?

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

Incognito — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:56:40 -0000

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.

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

Only One Cannoli — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:53:04 -0000

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.

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

Incognito — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:42:56 -0000

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!

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

Stephen J. — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:22:51 -0000

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.

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

KauaiBoy1960 — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:18:31 -0000

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.

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

K T Cat — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:05:49 -0000

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"

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

Kari — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:56:49 -0000

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.

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

Voiceguy — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:21:52 -0000

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.

Re: Writers Guild Strike: Another Perspective

Loren — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:52:20 -0000

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.