Monday, November 05, 2007

The WGA is on strike. Why?

Additionally, the WGA said, the AMPTP still insisted on no jurisdiction for most of new media writing; no economic proposal for the part of new media writing that would be covered; Internet downloads at the DVD rate; no residual for streaming video of theatrical product; and a "promotional" proposal that allows re-use of movies and TV shows on any platform with no residual; and a "window” of free reuse on the Internet.

The re-use of movies and TV shows on any platform is "promotional" the way the Japanese slaughter of thousands of whales annually is "research." This is purely an attempt to make money off new media without paying writers for it. These days, the syndication that generated the residuals that kept your average working writer off the street are being phased out in favor of streaming the episode on the Net. With commercials.

Writers shouldn't get paid for that why?

As for "Internet downloads at the DVD rate," the argument for the pathetic DVD residual rate (about four cents a disc) was that it costs so much to print DVDs and sell them. What's the argument for applying that rate to internet downloads, whose distribution costs are close to nil? Oh, right...



UPDATE: And here's Shawn Ryan on why he's not doing ANY work during the strike.

Labels: guild, strike

9:50 AM

2 Comments:

I do love that John Stewart clip. Without really saying much, he says everything.

By  Tim W., at 1:23 PM  

I read a lot of articles from a lot of different sources and I haven't bulged from my own opinion. I'm 100% behind the writers. Why ? because without you guys we wouldn't have great tv or great films. Think about James Bond without Haggis for example, it would be garbage. Think about Pushing daisies without Bryan Fuller ? Garbage !

On my blog on tv.com I've stressed out how important is is to support the strike even though in a short few weeks if the producers don't give in i won't have any tv left to watch, I don't watch reality crap (except for survivor) or games shows and I can't imagine watching 12 hours of news every day.

Everyone who has responded to my blogs have been supportive. We tv buffs understand fully what's going on. We do not think writers are rich people, we know for a fact that besides the big heads, most aren't.

I sure hope they win this and as always Jon Stewart has said it all.

By  Skyfleur, at 1:31 PM  

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