By now, you'd probably heard about the Writers Guild strike (or at least noticed that all the late night shows are airing only reruns) - but what is it all about anyhow?
In this short clip, the Writers Guild of America explained what they wanted and why they're striking (yup, it boils down to more money, from DVD sales and future revenue streams from the Internet, the so-called "New Media").
The video clip makes their position sounds fairly reasonable (for example, an increase of DVD residuals from 4¢ to 8¢ per copy, and that new media will likely supplant DVD sales). The studios countered that DVD sales are necessary because of rising production and marketing cost - and who knows what all the Internet hoopla will bring? It's an unproven market.
While the strike plays out, let me play the devil's advocate here: why have residuals at all? Don't writers get paid well to begin with? If they don't think they're making enough without residuals, why not ask to get paid more in the beginning? Isn't that how market forces are supposed to work?
Or maybe the solution is to make the residual system more fair: writers get a bigger share of the pie if the movie makes money, but have to pay if the movie flops and the studio loses money. That way, they're truly partners - Fair is fair, right?
What do you think?
Links: United Hollywood, a blog by the writers on strike | 2007 Writers Guild of America Strike [wiki]
Most writers are unemployed a lot of the time. The residuals are for reuse like song royalties. It is actually deferred pay - the studios don't ever like paying for anything upfront, so the writers get a tiny bit when ever their content is exploited. The corporations are trying to weasel out of that deal by claiming there is no money to be made on the new fangled internets (even though they stream content with commercials).
Residuals help writers survive. Only the top writers get paid well. Most writers are lucky to make 30k in a year.
And the dirty little secret of this part of corporate America, most writers develop new work for free. My husband goes to networks on behalf of studios and producers with pitches for shows - he develops original content, and takes their notes and reworks it, rehearses many hours and does a little dog and pony show - for FREE. Maybe the studios pay a bunch of lawyers some money to negotiate a deal IF the show sells - at least those billion dollar companies can still afford lawyers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE
The bigger question is WHY there needs to be writer's guild (union) in the first place! It exists only to limit entry of competing writers into the market and to keep the supply of writers artificially low. If you try to hire a writer outside the guild, all the other unions on your set will strike.
The reality is that free market forces should apply. Writers should be able to negotiate their own individual contracts or employment, like most other workers in the world. If they think their work is good enough to survive into residuals, let them negotiate for that. If they think they are stuck writing for a crappy show that will soon be gone, let them push for more $ up front and forego the residuals.
Such guilds in the entertainment industry are a tremendous anachronism and the reason why a lot of production moves to Canada or offshore. As an example of absurdity, In film cinematography, I am pretty sure the union rules still require 4 people on the set to run a film camera, even though modern cameras can be operated by a single person. Likewise, George Lucas got in trouble with the Directors' Guild because he refused to have director credits at the *beginning* of Star Wars, like their rules require. They were mad at him for creatively controlling his own film (he wanted the famous "In a Galaxy Far...") Pure wasteful foolishness, just like the need for a Writers' Guild.
Anytime your work is used or watched, you have entertained. Each use of your original work should net residual income. It's insulting to think people can use the creative thinkers for their own gain.
Most of America doesn't give two shits if this strike goes on forever.
It's a work for hire. Once the studio buys a script, it's theirs. They own it.
Shut up and get back to waiting tables.
The problem with this line of thinking is that every new show has the potential to be Seinfeld or Viva!Laughlin, monetarily speaking. The creative forces behind the show could be making a cash cow or they could be making a flop. The residual system rewards those who have contributed to making a cash cow, and punishes those who make a flop.
I also wouldn't tie in residuals to profits. Remember, the most creative people in showbusiness are not the actors, writers, directors, or producers. They are the accountants, and they will be able to back up claims of being in the black for Wall Street and being in the red for their workers simutaneously.
Oh, and Ray? You display an asshole's thinking.
In Hollywood, the powers-that-be don't give two sh*ts. So to speak. Creative accounting makes it appear that studios never earn a profit. Meanwhile, the talent who make the entire business possible in the first place must fight for equity.
I keep seeing writers quoting the internet ad dollars. What they either don't know or fail to mention is that number is all internet advertising. Not online video advertising. Big difference. What they also fail to mention is that they may continue to get paid the same salary plus their residuals for their TV writing, but TV ad sales revenues continue to decline as advertisers pull dollars and put them into online. And not into online video necessarily. In fact online video is a small piece of the internet advertising pie.
Also I was surprised by the figure about 48% of writers being unemployed at any time. You know what I do when I'm unemployed? I get a job. My old jobs don't pay me to sit around and wait until I get another job. If I can't find a job in my field, I find one in another field. I've changed careers 3 times in my 15 years in the workforce. I've been laid off. I've been stuck in low-paying industries. I survived by getting new jobs.
And the studios saying that the Internet is an "unproven market" just seems like a way for them to stuff the cash into their pockets... for now. Sure, when it becomes a "proven market", maybe they'll change their tune. But, in the meantime, they'll have gotten rich off of the work of others.
Some ads run for years and yaers, yet the writer doesn't get a residual from it. The actors in the ads do though. Why?
Oh, and Ray, if no one cared about this, television wouldn't be a multi-billion dollar industry. And it's not work-for-hire, obviously, so you're wrong again. (You are an a**hole, though, so you got something right.)
Because the studios foot the bill and take the risk, so it's their just reward to make money if the movie/show is successful. If the show tanks, then they lose all that money they spent on production/marketing - but the writers still get paid either way for the work they put in. This is the basic principle of capitalism.
Residuals is like all of the upside but none of the downside. How about if we make it fairer: writers (and actors and everyone else) get the back end, if they agree to pay and help minimize the loss if the movie flops?
@c-dub #18 and Ray #9: the movie industry is a big engine in California's economy. This strike will have a huge impact (the last one in 1988, which lasted more than 5 months, cost the economy $500 million).
There's a lot of collateral damage: mom & pop businesses that cater to the movie industry, as well as those who just happen to be in the same geographical areas (and thus have movie people as their customers) will be hurt badly.
I'm not sure how the auto-censor algorithm works, but it's terrible -- why bother posting?
Wordpress, the engine of this blog, has its own criteria for deciding whether a comment should be held for moderation or not. Part of the criteria is keyword match - though I can't honestly tell you if this is what triggered it for your comment.
Neatorama used to run a pretty strict profanity censor, but that was an unpopular feature and did get in the way of reading the comments, so we don't have profanity censor anymore.
I understand it's frustrating to have your clean comment held for moderation - I try to clear the moderation queue many times a day, though sometimes I just couldn't get to it because of work/life/sleep.
Unfortunately, moderation queue is necessary: it's the blog's last line of defense. About half of comments held in moderation are deleted because they were spam/ad hominem attack/inane comments.
I once talked to a set designer who was making a piece of prop, ran out of table space and set the piece down on the floor to grab a tool. When he turned around, a cleaner had taken it to throw it away. When he protested, the cleaner said that it was his job to throw away anything and everything that's on the floor according to union rules. He refused to give the piece back (citing union rules again) and the set designer had to remake the piece!
Another instance was a guy was carrying a prop and had to move an electrical cart because it was on his way. So he did what was natural, push the cart away a foot to the left or something like that - at this point, the electrician came screaming that he was taking away his livelihood because according to union rules, only he was allowed to move the cart.
These stories may be anecdotal, but ask anyone who's familiar with the movie industry and they'll confirm the waste and inefficiency caused by the union.
I can't speak for the inanity of other unions, but the writers guild's negotiating points are pretty straightforward. If a show or movie makes money over the lifetime of its use -- in some cases, MILLIONS of dollars in syndication, ad revenue, DVD sales, etc. -- surely the people whose story/performance it was deserve some (relatively small) fraction of that income?
Just because the economics support large profit-sharing, this is fundamentally a worker's rights issue. Given the market, it is about what is equitable. It's like getting angry at baseball players for striking to make more money, when: (a) the franchise owners are making obscene amounts of money off their talent; and (b) there would be no game, in the first place, without the talent. Maybe baseball players and writers are supposed to be more pristine in their motivations and obsequious in their requests -- for being able to earn a living, at all, doing what they do. But, really, executives are the ones who should be grateful. Like parasites and pimps, they are living fat off the sweat, blood and tears of others.
Without an organized labor force, there would be no leverage to seek fair compensation, humane working conditions, and health/retirement benefits.
I acknowledge your point about organized labor's role in seeking humane working conditions, health and retirement benefits, as well as fair compensation, but in this case, I dispute that the writers are not being paid their fair share in the first place.
Hollywood writers aren't mill workers - they're not being paid pittance. Perhaps they feel like they're not being paid enough, but welcome to the real world: 99.9% of workers feel like they're not being paid enough, but chances are market forces are already at work to determine the fair price of labor.
If a writer feels that the studio isn't paying her enough for a script, then she is free NOT to do it. If the studio can't find someone else to do it at the price it wants, then it'll be forced to raise what it's willing to pay. If it can find someone else to do it at that price, then it's a fair price to pay.
In regards to book authors getting portion of book sales, it's not an exact comparison. If a writer can work out his own agreement with a studio regarding residuals then great!
But there is no book author union forcing this issue. For the Writers Guild to interject itself and force the principle that ALL TV writers should get residuals from DVD sales and the Internet is an act of impediment to market forces.
Yeah, I know that points of view aren't censored. The Wordpress "hold for moderation" feature seems to snag me at least a third of the time, though, and probably a lot more if I post something lengthy. Short stupid quips almost always go right through, though. Aren't there any knobs on it that can be turned?
It's impossible for any lone writer to effectively invoke market forces by turning down work, because his or her "share" of the market is minuscule relative to that of the studio. That's why any group of workers unionizes, to level the playing field.
I think American unions have shot themselves in the foot repeatedly over the past fifty years -- but I still bristle whenever I hear someone describe "market forces" as some sort of noble construct or panacea. Market forces are not inherently equitable, because they concentrate around large, powerful entities.
you said:
"Without an organized labor force, there would be no leverage to seek fair compensation, humane working conditions, and health/retirement benefits."
How is it I am fairly compensated, work under humane conditions, and have health/retirement, yet I'm not in a union? My situation is not unique. Most of teh hite-color world (and a lot of blue collar jobs as well) are non-union. I can understand unions at one time working for health & safety standards for miners and other hazardous professions, but in the modern world, especially a white color position like a writer, there's really no need for it. They just serve as a barrier to entry to keep other writers out of the market. Same thing with the Screen Actors Guild...
If an incompetent writer takes it for too low a price and delivers a substandard work, then the studio will be forced to up the price to attract better talent.
Unions did have an important role in history - I've said that. But the writers are actually making good money and as Sid Morrison #29 said, they're working under good conditions.
Darren Barefoot tracked down how much writers are making (as best as one outside the industry could by reading union documents). For soap opera writers, it's $30K a WEEK (or if they have to involve other writers, then it's $15K). If you're a only contributing writer to the soap opera, then it's $3K a week. That's a lot of money! More on this at Neatorama's follow up to this post here.
In any case, I've cropped a whole bunch of keyword that WordPress targets, so hopefully this will minimize valid comments being held for moderation (while probably increasing the likelihood of spam going through).
You are talking in academic abstractions about fair compensation as whatever a writer is willing to accept. In this business, as probably with most, whatever the studios can get away with, they will. Without the union, there would be endless rewrites and drafts, and the writer would not be paid for any of their time, effort, talent, etc. In the case of this strike, in particular, writers are not negotiating for safe working conditions and all that, but rather for equitable profit-sharing. Period.
There are a lot of talented people in the world, and most corporate structures favor one mission: maximize board members' profits. Without an organized labor force, owners/executives would undercut the talent and hire the next poor, willing fella off the bus. Going back to the baseball analogy, the general public may not have sympathy for their demands, because they earn a good salary. But compared to what the owners are making off of their work, the players deserve it. The market allows for such salaries. Maybe we should lay off all the major league baseball players and bring up the hungry, farming teams from the minors? And if they make any demands, there are plenty of others willing to take their place...
You have to understand there is an inherent antagonism between art and commerce here. If executives could get away with showcasing flaming bags of poo, and if the public would happily feed from that trough, the studios would not bother with any guild of artisans whatsoever. Rather, the junk we see produced is the result of the tension between what artists have to offer and what studios are willing to produce (in an attempt to minimize their risk and expense) -- i.e., what they think the public will accept and consume. As one television executive said, "Make no mistake about it, our programming is just to keep people in their seats long enough to see the advertising."
For all involved, film and television is a feast-or-famine industry. We horde during the few months we can get work, and squirrel away for the times when we are not hired. Any boo-hoo dismission otherwise betrays an attitude that, say, art and sports are a privilege and not work. In truth, these fields of endeavor are an integral part of our society, and a meaningful contribution to our culture.
As consumers, if we really feel that writers, musicians, sports players -- whomever -- are making too much money, we can refuse to buy the pricey stadium tickets, DVDs, and so on. By default, that will drive down their cut in any profit-sharing.
I know how market forces work on paper – but reality is far more complex and nuanced. Specifically, there is a deep and inherent flaw in your statement, “If someone takes it at that price, then obviously the price is fair.” That is not obvious, nor is it true.
Let me cite one example. I am not a writer, but I work in a creative profession that has a large pool of young, very talented people looking for their first break. In order to get it, they’ll attempt to undercut the established players, sometimes even doing that first project for free. “Free” is not a fair price, you’d probably agree – but they do it in hopes of attracting future work. What they don’t understand is that when they’re later being considered for that future work, someone who’s younger and hungrier will offer to do THAT for free, just like they did.
And citing what a few writers make without addressing the larger industry economics is specious at best, for two reasons. First, a tiny percentage of writers are head writers of hour-long network shows: the true pay averages are far lower. Second, the television season is only 24 weeks long, so even $3,000 a week is $72,000 a year: not bad pay, but solidly middle class in LA. The kicker is, neither of those arguments even matter: in the end of the day, if the work they do is generating tremendous income, they deserve to benefit from it. You might look at their current income and decide you can’t sympathize with them, but sympathy is an emotion, and fairness is not.
I suppose my question is ultimately this: studios structure themselves and consolidate resources in order to exert their control in the market. Why on Earth should writers be denied that same ability? Where is the fairness in that?
Let me ask you this question back: Why do writers and actors deserve a small percentage of income that their work generates in the first place? I've always agreed that if they are able to work out a deal that promises them back-end or residual payments, then that's more power to them. They definitely should ask for it, but it's not an inherent right that they get paid forever for a work that was done (and paid for) by the studios.
If I write an article for a magazine and I get paid for it, then that's that. I can't go back to the magazine and say, give me a penny every time someone reads that article or buy that magazine.
TV commercial television writers don't get residuals - do you think they have the inherent right to get a percentage of sales/whatever every time the ad runs?
Comparing the writers strike to the baseball player strike is a double-edged sword. Remember that the general public disdained the players as selfish and greedy.
In that case, the baseball team owners own the business (in this case, the studios own the business) and they put their cash on the line - they stand to lose millions or gain millions. If they lose, do they ask for refunds from the players? No, they don't. So why do they have to give the players more *if they don't want to*.
Major League Baseball is a doubly bad example because it's a monopoly, but that's a different matter.
I'll answer for Nonimus, if I may: royalties are a traditional basis of compensation for television writers. If someone took a portion of your usual pay for themselves, would you sit quietly? That's exactly what's happening here: as content shifts from TV to the internet, a fundamental piece of the writer's compensation is being taken by the studios. And yet you seem to think it's unfair of them to protest.
If organized labor & citizenry have succeeded to increase the well-being of the larger community, and thereby pushed business overseas (including the abusive practices and harmful products no longer welcome here at home), again that's just the corporate credo following its bottom line to maximize profits. In that case, the onus falls on our legislatures to work out incentives to keep industry domestic.
I'm of the philosophical mindset that people should work together and share in the gains of their collaboration, as opposed to some slavish arrangement of pure, uncaring capitalism.
Don't fret, though. Whatever agreement that the directors, actors and writers guilds come to, the corporate heads and their families will not go hungry.
"Free" comes at a price, for most employers this means substandard work from an unreliable source - they actually prefer to pay a professional to get the job done right. Indeed, this is a common problem in many industries, but I have yet to hear the instance of a union forcing software programmer, graphic artist, or webmasters to join it before being able to do work.
@c-dub #35: And yet you seem to think it’s unfair of them to protest.
No, actually it's a fair response given their predicament. I just think that what they're doing is counter-productive: they're setting their intrinsic value higher than what it should be.
I think Sid Morrison #29 already pointed it out that the guild serves as a barrier of entry to writers. They force the studios only to use guild members, and force writers who want to deal with the studios to become a member. This is anti-competitive.
@Nonimus #37: Fair enough, this debate is academic to me (and I hope most of you as well). I don't have a vested interest in the studios winning at all, and I'm not in the least bit affected by the strike (because I hardly watch any TV - those reruns are new to me!).
I'm interested in your views on the principle of the matter and appreciate the time and thought you've put into the comments.
As for my philosophical mindset, I firmly believe that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So far, we've managed to do well with a republic model of the democracy and free market-driven economy, within the boundaries of the law.
Attempts to skew market forces, be it unions, excessive legislations, or monopolistic practices, will only have negative impacts on the economy in the long run.
And second, a few points to Alex...
Regarding the cost of free work: in the example I cited (and apparently in the writers guild as well) that free work has real value. The quality is often very high, because it's being offered by educated, talented people who are anxious to prove their abilities. And I'm not sure how you decided what the "intrinsic value" of a writer is, but I'd be curious to see the math.
In terms of barriers to employment, the guild is a direct analogue to the studio. The studio decides who works in their business, just as the guild does in theirs. True, a potential studio employee can negotiate between studios – but a group of writers can also form a competing union if they feel their interests aren't being fairly represented. Unions compete for members in the same way corporations compete for employees.
And finally, your opinion of market forces is simplistic: if you think that unions skew market forces but powerful corporations do not, you're seeing only a tiny fraction of the whole picture. Market forces are controlled by those wielding the most power, and for that reason, they should not be blindly defended.
I find Neatorama's discussion and comments tend to be well-reasoned and polite, a true aberration from the rest of the cesspool that is the Internet.
We disagree on many points, but I will let Nonimus and c-dub have the last words on this post (I will, however, respond to some questions pointed my way on the follow up post). I thank them for a healthy and hearty discussion.
When you're paid a wage, it is theoretically a result of how much your work was worth. For some industries, that value is impossible to gauge before the product has been released.
This is why there are residuals and royalties-- the value of the writer/actor/musician/artist's contribution is not known until the product has been sold in the marketplace.
So, let's say you're a writer on a soap opera and you're barely competent. You'll get paid X amount for the act of writing a soap opera, just as anyone gets paid for the act they do.
But if you're an EXCELLENT writer, your contribution goes beyond just creating a properly formatted script and a story with few holes that adheres to the rules of the TV show. An excellent writer adds to the show's popularity, which adds to the revenue generated by the show. Excellent writing similarly adds to the potential longevity of the show, drawing out the length of the revenue generated over time.
Royalties and Residuals compensate creative workers appropriately for the value they generate, according to a contract. This is somewhat different from a visual artist, who relies on word of mouth and customer appreciation to increase the value of THEIR work. So Picasso got paid squat for early paintings but LOTS for later masterpieces. If Picasso wasn't a good painter (however you measure that), he would not have been compensated in such a way.