Bent Corner

The rank and file members of the Writers Guild of America still have to vote, but it appears the 14 week writers strike is almost over. From the Washington Post article:

The most immediate beneficiaries of a settlement could be the thousands of production workers — grips, caterers, camera operators, makeup artists — who were thrown out of work when the writers struck. Although movie production mostly continued during the strike, TV shows on both coasts quickly came to a halt when the strike began Nov. 5.

This has been precisely my contention from the very beginning; This strike was highly damaging to a vast amount of people that work behind the scenes on TV shows. People that never stood to gain a single penny from Internet residuals.

Also from the Washington Post article:

On the key issue of compensation for work streamed over the Internet, both sides gave a little. The studios and their network allies originally asked the guild for time to study the issue and declined to offer any residuals for digital media when talks broke off in early December. The guild, in turn, held fast, arguing that writers had to share in the profits of what may become the preeminent way to view filmed entertainment.

But the writers never wanted to share in the profits. The writers have always insisted that they be paid whether their work generates a profit or not. Their cut has always come from the gross, not the net.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I’ve been trying to learn more about the Writers Guild of America (WGA) writers strike. Much of what I’ve read or heard about the reasons for the strike seem to be contradict other things I’ve read or heard about the strike. I found a list of points at the WGA.org website. Here’s a quick summery of the main sticking points:

• Home Video (Videocassettes and DVDs) Residuals - They currently get 0.3% of the distributors’ gross for the first $1 million and 0.36% thereafter. They want 0.6% of the distributors’ gross for the first $1 million and 0.72% thereafter.

• Non-Traditional Media Residuals - They currently get .3% of the gross for downloads where the customer pays for the download. They currently get paid nothing when the customer pays nothing. They want a residual payment of 2.5% of the distributor’s gross for re-use on non-traditional media, including the Internet. I’m not sure what they want to be paid when the content is free. It’s hard to assign a percentage to free.

If you go back and watch the YouTube video I posted the other day from the people from The Office, what they say in the video seems to contradict the information found on the WGA website. B.J. Novak, actor and writer for The Office, says that every time he meets a new viewer to The Office, they are watching it on the Internet or on DVD. I’m assuming that when they say they were watching it on the Internet, they were downloading the episodes from iTunes. Only recently did NBC start streaming episodes from free. The inference is that Novak and the other writers aren’t getting paid for the episodes on the Internet or on DVD.

That’s not true. If money changes hands, the writers are getting a percentage.