Better Way to Web Pay Writers Say

The Writers Guild of America, both the East and West divisions, are the major professional organizations for those who write movie and television scripts. And the entire organization is pushing for writers to get a cut of what the studios will be making online, according to an LA Times story.

The studios are calling the stance an attack on the entire business and further demanding that the industry revisit how it allots residuals - the money paid for reruns and reuse of same movies and TV shows. They only want to start paying after a show breaks even.

Let's take this argument apart a bit. Here's something from the story:

Chief studio negotiator J. Nicholas Counter, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, called the demands an "assault on the entire industry."

"We are committed to making a deal — one that is fair to both sides … one that is realistic, reasonable and respects our contributions and our business needs as well as theirs," he said.

So, is the negotiator tacitly admitting that a percentage is fair and only disagreeing with the amount? Or is he pulling what newspaper and magazine publishers still claim to writers: that there's no revenue to be had from the Internet? If that's the case, then obviously there should be no problem in offering a percentage of the nothing they get. If there is revenue, it's unreasonable for the the studios to divert everything into their own pockets.

As far as residuals, when does "break even" happen? Anyone who has watched chronicles of the business dealings in Hollywood knows that the answer is often never, after the accountants are through with such things as deducing the money that the studio would have made had it invested in something else instead. After all, not not only are there expenses from money the studios spent, but from what they didn't spend. And are these people suggesting that they get free air time, free engineering, free ... everything, until they decide that they've broken even? Tell you what, as we're only writers, let's make it simple to understand and leave the high finance out. If the studio heads want writers to forgo their share of these new revenue streams, that's fine - so long as the studio heads have their entire compensation cut equivalently. I'm sure that will work; I hear that climate change is going to bring a freak snowstorm to the ninth circle of hell.