Why We Fight - Or - The Magic Cake

Good analogy. A building can be, and quite often is, constructed at great cost based on the blueprints provided by the architect.

Then the building is often sold over and over again in perpetuity, via what we call “rent”, and each time the architect collects a slice of the revenue.

Oh, wait.

I might be wrong about this, but wouldn’t an architect make money off the blueprints if those blueprints were licensed to another builder? Obviously we’re not going to see copies of Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao popping up all over the world. However, I believe that an architect can license blueprints for a suburban home to be re-used for addtional fees. So although you may not pay Frank Gehry every time you walk into the Guggenheim Bilbao, he would surely get paid again if his blueprints were used to build an identical museum in Des Moines. Just as a writer would get paid if a show he wrote for television popped up on the Internet.

That’s an interesting take on it all.

great, now I’m thinking about “ever lasting” cake.
I’m trying to figure out who you’re going to offend or piss off with this posting….there’s got to be somebody.

Good one. But amazingly, some people still don’t get it. They think that just because you made a magic cake doesn’t entitle you to a never-ending source of revenue, and arguments to the contrary otherwise fall on deaf ears. They side with the store that paid you $100, assuming that this somehow entitles the store to make money off the cake you baked forever, since they paid you for this right.

People who think that way can’t get their head around the claim that somehow screenwriters deserve more. So I don’t take this approach in trying to persuade them.

Instead, I show how others in similar situation are already in fact fairly compensated, so it follows that screenwriters should enjoy the same economic rights. Examples: inventors who hold patents, authors who write novels or plays, songwriters who sell records. The law protects them as creators to ensure they receive a fair portion of the economic benefits derived from the commercial exploitation of that which they create. Again, it follows that screenwriters deserve the same economic rights.

Maybe there’s even a better way to put it. I hope this is useful.

JP Wolff

I rather like that analogy -

But for John Q Public, It seems to me just comparing movies to books or CDs works pretty well, even though the copyright situation is different: it’s still “licensed re-use” so to speak.

99% of John Q Public doesn’t care, and the other 1% won’t get it.

But nice analogy otherwise.

How about this, I draw a comic strip, the syndicate and I split the money for the initial sales to the papers.
If I go on vacation and we run repeats we still split the money. If there are books, compilations of the strips, we both get paid again. Merchandising? We both get paid. The syndicate can’t sell/re-sell my work and cut me out of the deal. Charles Schultz made over a million a month just on merchandising.

Mmmmmm, everlasting cake …

.

mmmm… cake.

Nice analogy, Craig.

I think part of the disconnect comes form the “magic” part. The internet allows for a product… say a movie… to be reproduced EXACTLY and moved around and copied for practically nothing.

No packaging. No truck. No train. No warehouse or forklift.

Pennies.

Writers aren’t asking for 8 cents on that product. They’re asking for a fair proportionate percentage.

As you say: “a magic cake.” Writers aren’t asking for even a slice of the cake. Just a few of the crumbs.

“Mr. Scrooge, might I have a piece of coal for the fire… since I was the one to discover the coal mine in the first place?”

I’ve given you a hard time, Craig, and I’m sure we’ll disagree in the future, but that was a nice piece. Nice analogy.

Thanks.

Craig:

This is a fine analogy — and a little more to the point than August’s explanation. I would strike the architect explanation, however: you could easily extend the analogy of regeneration to apartments (an apartment keeps turning over, being “re-created” much like a piece of projected film). I know it’s not the same — but for the layperson…

…and speaking of laypeople…

I was at home this weekend. I have what I call the “mother rule” — basically that my mother is the bellwether of public opinion and cultural trendspotting. She has voted with the winning president in every election since 1976 (she voted for Gore in 2000, but I think we can agree on that) and if she likes a movie, it will be a guaranteed hit. Okay, she is admittedly a little bit biased on this strike, but for the life of her, she couldn’t understand WHY writers shouldn’t be getting paid when the studios were. It’s really that simple.

Look — the WGA is going to get bad press, not just because of the fact that the Big Six own the media (which isn’t really true; most media is trickle-down from the Times), but because most journalists are under-paid and cranky and have a lot of resentment toward screenwriters (I used to be a journalist).

But something that the WGA has mis-underestimated is just how fed-up with corporate control over entertainment, medicine, gasoline, etc. the average American is. Not to get all populist on you, but when you just explain to most people that the corporations receive money and the writer receives none — guess what? THEY GET IT.

Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t technically or legally matter who deserves residuals — the point is, if you have a union, and that union is strong, you can fight for whatever sort of remuneration you and your fellow workers believe you deserve, whether you’re a teacher, a truck driver, or a writer.

I tend to tell people that every time you buy a book, the writer gets a small piece of the sale. No reason it should be any different for film or tv writers.

And as for our IATSE friends who think we’re rich people fighting for more money - I like to point out that what the companies are doing is replacing reruns with internet delivery, trying to reduce residuals to zero. We’re not really asking for more, we’re fighting to keep what we already have.

And if IATSE folks don’t think our residuals cut affects you -

read this -

http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/brief-history-of-union-residuals.html

especially the part of how your residual income resulted in 347 million dollars being contributed to the IATSE pension and health fund.

If they take ours, better believe they’re going to take everybody else’s too.

That Steve-O video was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.

Here’s a better anaology as to how the Companies see things. And I’ve heard it straight from one of the top suits.

He says:

The studios need to run like the pharmaceutical industry.

Therein, a brilliant and creativecrea PhD organic chemist creates a drug for the company that is then resold, renamed, repackaged ad inifinitum…

…and the creative PhD gets ZILCH beyond his contracted salary.

Certainly, that drug’s formulation is a magic recipe that the scientist created. It could even be considered the scientist’s intellectual property. It is authored and generates hundreds of millions in recurring revenue.

But the scientist gets ZILCH.

That’s how those you fight see things.

I hate it, too.

Lew Wasserman once said something about not having to pay a plumber every time he flushes the toilet.

But as someone on Huffingtonpost responded— the correct analogy is that someone INVENTS a whole new type of toilet (or toilet valve or whatever). Under patent law, he or she gets a residual payment (royalty) every time someone buys that toilet.

Now— you can argue the absurd length of copyright vs. patent (what, 20 years vs. death+100 years?!) and I won’t argue back, but the same principal applies.

This falls under promoting the “useful arts” in the constitution.

AYAAW

I might be wrong about this, but wouldn’t an architect make money off the blueprints if those blueprints were licensed to another builder? Obviously we’re not going to see copies of Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao popping up all over the world. However, I believe that an architect can license blueprints for a suburban home to be re-used for addtional fees. So although you may not pay Frank Gehry every time you walk into the Guggenheim Bilbao, he would surely get paid again if his blueprints were used to build an identical museum in Des Moines. Just as a writer would get paid if a show he wrote for television popped up on the Internet.

Yes.

If an architect designed a plan for a house that could be reproduced, that architect should collect royalties each time a house is manufactured from the same blueprint.

One other argument I heard in an online discussion I had recently that I’d like to counter:

“The spoiled crybaby writers make 200K average a year.”

Even if this WERE true, which I haven’t seen documentation for..

AVERAGE (mathematically known as “mean”) is not the same as MEDIAN, which is a much more typical estimate of what people in a given group make.

Average == add up total incomes and divide by number of people.

Mean == income by which there is an equal number of people making more and less.

Example: Take ten people who make $40K/year. Add Bill Gates. The average income will be ridiculously high. The median average will be $40K, a typical income for those people.

Look up “median vs. average” anywhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median

“According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual salary of a scriptwriter is $44,350.”

Source: http://www.fans4writers.com/strike.shtml

AYAAW

“The median average will be”

Replace with:

“The median income will be”

AYAAW

My dad produced, and wrote several episodes of Hawaii Five-O. He didn’t get residuals. And when you work without those expectations it’s no big deal. (Unless you live long enough) But you guys do get residuals. And you should be compensated fairly. And your miniscule increase of 4 cents per dvd should be a done deal. You should also be compensated for the internet downloads. With that said (and I realize that unless I start trolling or attacking someone - based on the last 474 comment post) that my remarks may be too passive and get passed over. That or I’m just not making a good case.

I would suggest you keep your public campaign in the realm of KEEPING IT SIMPLE. Because anyone outside of L.A and N.Y. is not going to understand.

you need a clear and simple mantra.

and the other point I was going to make was already made. and I quote

“But something that the WGA has mis-underestimated is just how fed-up with corporate control over entertainment, medicine, gasoline, etc. the average American is. Not to get all populist on you, but when you just explain to most people that the corporations receive money and the writer receives none � guess what? THEY GET IT.”

Right. First and foremost I agree with royalties and residuals. But, the problem with analogies, is that they can bite you in the arse. Journalists don’t get money on every newspaper sold, do they? Columnists? Do editors? Should editors? [Speaking of which do film or TV editors?] Architects was your’s. And I assume that if someone used his/her blueprints she/he would get something. But why use his blueprints when another architect can get you a copy for cheaper? Clothing designers? Can’t those be considered works of art? Hell, art for that matter. The artist gets paid once on his first sale. And never again. But that’s a unique original, and not a mass-made copy. Does Georgia O’Keefe’s estate get money for every poster print of a ‘flower’?

There’s a lot of murky analogies in there, and if anything determines what is considered art, it’s social norms. As for lesser copies of original works - like buildings and clothes. Well someone can make a rip-off movie and the original copyright holder would have to sue.

I think all I’ve done is succeed in confusing myself. In the end, I’m behind the writers, because they’re right. And I agree with the poster who pointed out that most of america is fed up with corporate control. The problem is no one can agree on what corporate control is.

Yeah. Still confused with myself. Good luck with getting a fair deal.

There’s a reason the inventor of the toilet never has to worry about money; they’re stinking rich because they own the patent. The patent is intellectual property. Every time a contractor builds a house, they pay Kohler to install the toilets, who, in turn, licenses the patent.

There’s an inventor who conceives the idea, a contractor who exploits it, a laborer who builds it, and a plumber who services it, all without whom crapping would not be possible.

But in our case, the contractor makes all the money because we sold the patent.

The question shouldn’t be: why do we deserve residuals? The question should be: why don’t we retain the rights to our intellectual property? Why isn’t that “rollback” on the table?

Analogies aside, residuals are a poor substitute for giving up our intellectual rights to corporations for unfettered exploitation but essentially serve the same purpose. If the AMPTP wants to take residuals off the table, then they can license the product. And hey, who knows, it might end this awesome run of unsupported sequels, remakes and television spin-offs.

What is it with the strike and baked goods? I was wearing my strike shirt on Thursday and I got stopped by a guy and had the following exchange:

Hey, are you a writer?

I wondered if was a bright move to don my shirt before heading out to the picket. Yes, yes I am, I told him.

I wanna shake your hand, he told me. We shook hands, and he continued. Y’know, it’s bullshit. It’s like you bake this big pie for the corporations, and they eat it. They don’t even let you eat a slice of the pie that you baked!

Blogged here: http://www.theslackdaily.com/2007/11/strike-two.html

Cake!

Cake!

That is a good analogy.

How do you think it will play in the media compared to “The Strike that Stole Christmas?”

http://sturly.com/c8 or Reuters:Hollywood workers fret as strike enters Week 2.

I wonder who will be cast as the grinch.

One final note then I’ll go away…

I think there’s a very strong argument that computer programmers who work in creative mediums, especially w/game development in story, music, character work, etc. have a good argument for deserving residuals too, and I hope to see them unionize because from what I read they are completely getting boned.

AYAAW

if you were paid to create the “magic” cake to begin with, then you only did what was expected. if the magical attributes came by accident, then you should get paid.

the problem lies with the fact it is all speculation if internet downloads create or entice NEW viewers (ones no one was expecting). also, we are still several years away from any logical format that will replace disc storage.

as an example, i was staying with friends (a family of 5) out of state that had purchased a new home and installation of their satellite dish was 10 days away. i got on itunes and bought the 1st season of “lost”. we connected my ipod and watched those episodes whenever there was nothing to do. since we had never seen the show on broadcast tv, we were able to catch up on the story and characters in time for the new season.

fast foward to present day. i (and my friends) have NEVER watched those episodes since and, you now have 6 loyal broadcast viewers.

NO one i know downloads tv shows intending to use the download as a primary source of viewing. it is more along the lines of “shit! i missed the show, now i’m going to have to watch it on my 21” monitor which makes me a sad panda.” and if i’m quick enough i can get it for free from youtube before it gets pulled down for copyright. i also have bit-torrent as a backup. sorry folks but thats the way it is.

The fact is that the vast majority of people in the world don’t create intellectual property and are apt to compare screenwriting to his or her own job. “I get hired to do a job, I get a weekly salary and that’s it. I don’t get anymore, why should they?”

Rather than try to explain it to people of that opinion I just say it doesn’t really matter whether they believe in copyright for intellectual property because you know who does?

The motion picture and television studios.

Just try putting a sign outside your house advertising a sale of DVD copies you made of, “A Night At The Museum,” and see how fast you get a visit from the FBI.

This isn’t a fight over whether intellectual property copyright is right or should or shouldn’t exist it’s simply a battle between two groups of true believers over what the split should be.

The increasingly powerful companies are just using their might to dispense with quaint, old fairness and trying to establish the split on internet streaming as something like, oh, let’s say…100% for them and ZERO for the creators of that intellectual property.

You see, they believe it’s wrong for the consumer to continually profit from material they were sold for one, specific use but have suddenly become convinced they should not be held to the same standard. A standard they’ve agreed to for the past fifty years.

And they are doing that for the oldest and worst reason there is: because they can. Or at least, drunk on their own power, they think they can. By withholding our work, shutting down shows and picketing our hearts out, we are doing everything in our power to convince them otherwise. Wish us luck. We’re going to need it.

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that the local News is giving the Broadway strike much more airtime than the WGA strike?

Okay, just wondering…now get back to your cake.

When Fitzgerald published ‘The Great Gatsby’ it sold 25000 copies in it’s first year.

Last year, 2006, it sold 25000 copies…every two weeks.

Intellectual property is worth fighting over. The future is not tomorrow, it’s now and drawing a line in the sand is sometimes the only real way to get the attention you deserve.

Now, that said, I wish everyone would put their dicks away and get back to the BUSINESS at hand, which is negotiating a deal so everyone can get back to work.

For the record. I like the everlasting cake analogy.

66sputnik, then how are the studios makign billions of dollars off of new media? Just because you and your circle of friends don’t watch internet media? Last time I checked, you weren’t the sun.

Magic cake.

Jesus.

I know. It seems innocuous. How could Olson possibly have a problem with this one? Well, because this one typifies so much of what’s wrong with Mazin and this site.

Follow me:

It’s a shit analogy. Don’t get me wrong - it’s cute and lovable. A magic cake, kids! But it’s still a shit analogy, and it’s a hell of a long way to go to explain something that’s REAL fucking simple:

I write a book. A publisher publishes it. Every time the book is sold, I get a piece of the action. There isn’t a single person on the planet who has a problem with that. And the few people who don’t understand residuals will if you point them in that direction. (Ted, I’m sure, will come in and explain the whole copyright/authorship thing as it pertains to what we do, and how our situation is different from authors, but as analogies go, I humbly submit that comparing us to novelists is significantly more apt than comparing us to elven bakers from the land of Snickety Poo.)

(Also, as a side note, if I start selling cupcakes tomorrow, I’m not obliged to pay the person who came up with the recipe. Although, I suppose, if it was a magical recipe, there might be legal ramifications that I’m ignorant of at the moment. I’ll check with my attorney, Gandalf, tomorrow. )

The notion that you have to go as far afield as to make up a story about a magic cake to explain residuals, well, it’s not helpful. In fact, it’s damaging. Because if that’s the lengths we have to go to explain residuals, we’ve lost.

Craig’s effectively stating that residuals can’t be defended in the real world. You have to resort to fairy tales to explain them. It’s an incredibly simple issue, one everyone understands, but when a guy who gets quoted in Nikki Finke and the Wall Street Journal acts like it’s this complicated, obviously, them writers aren’t on such solid ground.

[Craig, as usual, will claim he’s not trying to be a spokesman for anything, and yet, this post knocks the air out of that one. This is, essentially, a press release. “Here’s what to tell people when they ask you about residuals.” That’s kinda what a spokesman does. I’m just sayin’…]

It’s also patronizing as hell. You’re asking me to explain basic business practices by going to magic cake? Only when I’m talking to five year olds. If you use this analogy on an adult, not only do you risk him thinking you’re an idiot (“Dude. I get it. It’s just like a book”), but you’re insulting his intelligence, as well. Craig do like to talk down to the people.

It’s deeply telling as well. You have to scratch at it, and what’s underneath is this - Craig has spent so much time in his special world that he actually has a hard time justifying residuals to himSELF. He’s so grateful to massa that he’s swallowed the lie that we don’t really deserve residuals. He knows, deep down inside, that we do, but he’s lost sight of why, so he has to go to these massive, absurd and childish lengths to justify them to himself. Honest to God, he’s forgotten why writers deserve to get compensated when someone buys their work. Thus, magic cake.

And lastly, it’s just bad writing. One of the tools those of us who ply our trade in the yarn biz have to have is the ability to craft solid analogies. Residuals are not like magic cake. They’re part of the real world, and if you have to resort to fantasy to justify them, you’ve already lost the battle.

A plea, Craig. One that’ll almost certainly fall on deaf ears, but I live in hope…. If you really care about your fellow writers and winning this strike, stop trying to help. Just finish your job, then come out on the picket line and do your time among your fellow writers until we win this fucking thing.

Good one. But amazingly, some people still don’t get it. They think that just because you made a magic cake doesn’t entitle you to a never-ending source of revenue, and arguments to the contrary otherwise fall on deaf ears. They side with the store that paid you $100, assuming that this somehow entitles the store to make money off the cake you baked forever, since they paid you for this right.

Here is how you explain it.

Yes, if you sold the magic cake for $100 outright, you don’t deserve any future compensation — for that cake. You sold it voluntarily, you agreed on the compensation, and if you realized after the fact that the company you sold it to can exploit it to make more money in perpetuity, you can’t go back and rewrite the terms of sale.

But… you would be a fool if you ever sold another magic cake on the same terms.

Given that consumers like variety, that the same cake day after day, no matter how good it is, becomes boring and unappetizing, the company is going to come back to you to ask you to bake another magic cake of a different flavor. At that point, the fact that they bought the first one for a fixed $100 is irrelevant. You now know that there is an expectation that your new magic cake is worth tens of thousands of dollars (at the net present value of the cashflow it will generate to the company). You have the basis to negotiate for as much of that net present value as the company is willing to give you in return for the right to generate that cashflow.

And wouldn’t you be an idiot if you asked for anything less?

better analogy…

You are constructing what will be the tallest building in the world. you commission a painter to create a mural for the lobby. since the painter knows this will be a tourist attraction he says he will do it for below his normal rate if he can get a monthly fee for foot traffic. you agree. you don’t get the amount of visitors you had thought you would, so you decide to try and generate more revenue and foot traffic by photgraphing and printing postcards of the lobby and mural, do you owe the painter for every postcard you sell or give away?

At the end of the day it all comes down to copyright. I write novels, I own those works. No matter who publishes them, what press, hardcover or paperback, no matter what country or language they’re published in, they are my property because I created them. I get royalties from my publisher every time they sell a book. If they stop printing the book, I can sell it to another publisher. I control the copyright.

It’s the same in the music business. Songwriters retain ownership no matter who performs the songs or what company releases them.

For some reason, (and I think we can all take an educated guess here) years ago studios rejected allowing the writers ownership of the copyright. The studios came up with this residual formula to pretend that they were paying royalties. Now they want to stop doing that.

Screenwriters can never get ownership back, (although THAT would be something to strike for) but we need to remind the studios that original ideas - writing - comes from people who in any other media would be the owners of their creative labors and we should get a reasonable helping of magic cake.

(is that like cake from Amsterdam?)

I have noticed that. Front page of the Times today. But I also haven’t heard much from IA about the poor actors and other dependent workers whose livelihoods are being negatively affected by Local One’s contract issues. It goes both ways. I was thinking of going down and picketing with them tomorrow in an effort at job action fence mending.

A lot of you need tor ead John August’s post, which is provided in the main post. Mark Haskell - your question on why screenwriters aren’t considered ‘authors’ is answered there. If we had full ownership, shit wouldn’t work in Hollywood.

Doesn’t the guy who invented the intervals for winshield wipers get paid every time that option is used on a car? Which is on every car? Doesn’t apply, maybe.

It’s funny, a song writer—let’s say Dr. Dre—writes a song. Gwen Stefani sings on his music track. Dr. Dre gets paid every time that song gets used. As does Gwen.

Even when those songs are used in movies.

Carlo, show me the MONEY. show me if it’s from page views, fan message boards, or streaming media. the fact is YOU can’t.

“So if someone asks you why we deserve to get paid each time someone buys a copy of a movie, tell them about the magic cake.”

Dude, can’t I just tell them about books? That seems to be the simplest way because everyone understands books and printing and reprints and shit like that.

But cake? Magic cake? What the fuck?

Are we living in the land of Sugar Plum Fairies now? Are we picketing the gates of fucking Hogwarts?

You lost me, buddy.

Or someone makes a song that wins an award. And then a recording studio steals that song and is sung over by a ‘talented’ rap/hiphop ‘musician’. And the person who got his song ripped by the recording studio gets jack all simply because they changed one note.

I never like analogies because they’re always about some other thing, not the thing you really are talking about.

Anyway, what I don’t get is why the argument isn’t simply about who gets the profits? It seems to me the production companies are middlemen. They pull the resources together and make it happen. But who actually does the work? The artists do. So the artist should be first in line to get the money. The producers are the ones whi should have to negotiate their cut.

When you hire an agent they don’t say, ‘I’ll take all the profits and dole you out your agreed fees and some residuals’, while keeping the rest. No, it’s you who takes the profit and gives them a 10% cut. They find the work. But you get paid, not them.

It’s deeply telling as well. You have to scratch at it, and what’s underneath is this - Craig has spent so much time in his special world that he actually has a hard time justifying residuals to himSELF. He’s so grateful to massa that he’s swallowed the lie that we don’t really deserve residuals. He knows, deep down inside, that we do, but he’s lost sight of why, so he has to go to these massive, absurd and childish lengths to justify them to himself. Honest to God, he’s forgotten why writers deserve to get compensated when someone buys their work. Thus, magic cake.

Josh Olson! Who is really resorting to fantasy here? “Grateful to massa?” WTF? Seriously, WTF?

66sputnik, have you heard of something called advertising? This is how the studios make money on new media. Advertisers are paying to be on streamed media (and so forth). Show you the money? What the heck are you getting at. It’s all advertising. Why do advertisers pay so much to have an ad spot on internet media? Because tonnes of people watch it!

The proof behind how successful new media is in the advertising agencies and other ‘big boys’ in the corporate game. Don’t try to complicate it by asking for ‘proof’. That’s like asking me to prove the CN Tower in Toronto… well, exists.

We want to have our cake and eat it, too? :snark:

You think the AMPTP is bad.

Betty Crocker will crush you.

For she has the mighty and delicious power of the much feared devil’s food behind her.

ps. The CN tower in Toronto DOES in fact exist. Google isn’t needed here.

Josh Olson:

Can you recommend a good cleaning product to remove spittle from computer screens?

Thank you,

Alan

Josh, please don’t leave my magic cake out in the rain.

I think it’s a mistake to try to justify why we get residuals to laypeople. Tell them were like songwriters. And why does no one question songwriters on this?? They’re paid in perpetuity and it’s widely understood that it’s because they wrote the songs. There is no difference here.

It isn’t plumbing no matter how many tortured analogies are designed. I’m not selling faucets, I’m selling intellectual property. And newsflash, plumbers get paid every time they step foot in someone’s house whether they actually fix anything or not. That ain’t such a bad deal in its own right.

Carlo, if your scripts are as simplistic as your idea of how business works it wouldn’t surpise me to find out you are one of the “poor” writers.

fact is, it’s not a zero-sum game you are playing. how many pilots get made where the writer got paid and the studio didn’t make a dime because it never got a pick-up or even broadcast?

Craig…your magic cake story sucks…get more sleep and focus on the job that is paying your money right now. If you want to be considered an author…then get paid the same way a novelist does. You get your upfront money, and then you don’t get anything unless the book is a big hit. The old excuse about the studios bookkeeping making a share of profits impossible to track is obsolete. The real problem is that no one has even tried to design a mondern accounting system that would make profit based resiguals or royalties work. I’ll be WalMart could. I’ll bet the WGA doesn’t want to. You’re desire to support the guild is very touching, like watching a boyscout’s chest swell with pride on receiving a merit badge. And now it is time to grow up and admit that if the guild can’t do a 21st Century job of representing writers, then maybe writers should consider new representation. The strike is the direct result of the guild saying this is what they wanted and were planning to do. The AMPTP is just taking logical defensive action and “Counter” attacking (not a bad pun if I say so myself). Maybe someone can talk everyone back to the table…but I think the AMPTP has decided that if the guild wants their assed kicked, then the AMPTP might as well do it now.

In many, many businesses, people get paid commissions, bonuses, overrides, etc. for units sold, hours billed or performance. It’s not that farfetched.

Susan

I’ve been on the picket lines every day.

I’m a strike captain. I was gung-ho. I thought we could make a difference.

But the general consensus I’ve experienced on the lines is that picketing is just a big fat pat on the back wank session.

The agencies stop by every day. We get free cookies, free pizza, and lotsa thumbs up…so why do I feel like nothing is being accomplished?

By the way, DON’T TALK TO THE PRESS! The WGA won’t let you, even though you’re out there every day. We’re not smart enough to have an opinion.

But what about stopping scabs from entering the studios gates, you ask? Get real. As if the internet doesn’t exist? Telephones? Emails? Reality check. If scabbing’s gonna happen, picketing ain’t stopping it.

But like Olsen and unlike Craig, I got nothing better to do, so I’ll be out there every day, and I’m sure Craig will be out there too when his shoot’s wrapped. I know because I’ve seen Ted Elliott out there out there walking too…every day. And he’s vocal in his dissent.

I’ll be out there every day. Even as this drags on for months.

I’m pro-union, but I’m not deluded. I know that the only people who are truly hurting the AMPTP are the people refusing to write.

Actually, if the cupcake is unique in its proprietary ingredients — sort of like a piece of intellectual property, to stretch for an analogy — you would have to pay the guy who came up with the recipe. So maybe magic cupcake is better than magic cake.

Jesus, it’s even simpler than that.

Residuals are to writers what stock options are to employees.

Stop options represent the bet a worker makes against of the real value of the work that he/she puts into a company. Work that they are not compensated for in their salary. In other words, it means that the company can pay them less, in exchange for them betting on the future of the company to pay them more over time.

Residuals are what writers get for making the same bet on the content they produce. The production company hopes to make millions if not billions off of the writer’s work. So the production company pays the writer an industry standard, plus a residual for not making said company pay the millions and billions the content might prove to be worth.

So everyone bets on the future. That incentivizes the writer to create content worth millions and billions, and it incentivizes the company to invest in content that might be worth millions and billions.

Until the company starts saying it doesn’t want to invest in that sort of content anymore. Which if you think about it, is really what they’re saying now.

So writers make magic cake? With most movies, it’s more like magic brownies.

Studios are worst than Marie Antonette. At least she offered cake!

What’s dumber? Them fighting us over crumbs. Or us giving up our bread over crumbs?

Wow, someone has the munchies.

Also, was that really Josh Olson, or someone doing a satire of Josh Olson?

How about:

Screenwriters get residual payments because the total value of a script cannot be determined at the time the script is sold to the production company.

(by total value i mean what a movie based on a given script makes upon release, year after year. and that value cannot be known at the time of sale of the script because no one knows how a given movie will perform in the market place until they actually release it; they may have rough ideas at the moment the script is purchased, but those estimates can be way off)

Does that make sense/is it an accurate statement?

• Sujewa

Josh:

If you really care about your fellow writers and winning this strike, stop trying to help. Just finish your job, then come out on the picket line and do your time among your fellow writers until we win this fucking thing.

What does the AMPTP need to do for you to consider us to have won this strike?

• Ted

“Studios are worst than Marie Antonette.”

I say, “Let them eat Craig!”

John #20,

Journalists don’t get paid for every newspaper sold, no. They’re paid employees, on a salary. Most articles by most journalists are not worth reprinting, unlike films/TV shows, which are shown over and over on many formats. So there’s no real comparison between the two. I should know - I was a journalist for 17 years until recently.

On the paper I worked for, journalists DID get some additional compensation from the company in exchange for the right for the company to reprint their work in the (very) occasional book. We called it the Copyright Bonus. Usually around $1000 a year, paid around Christmas time (came in handy). And yes, editors got it as well.

Sometimes I think too much emphasis is put on the residual as though it’s sacred and an inalienable for an artist to collect it.

I don’t think that’s necessarily true. If I said to a writer, you have a choice, I’ll pay you a one time $200K fee for an episode of CSI: Barstow, or I’ll pay you $30K plus 2.5% for reruns and home video, I think it’s safe to say the writer would intelligently choose option option A.

I think it’s more comprehensible to the general public to say; look the bottom line is we have to earn a living. For the past 50 years that’s been predicated on an upfront fee plus additional money paid out as the program was replayed. That model has now changed, reruns are becoming a thing of the past so we need to find an equitable way to get paid enough money so that we can survive.

I think a good analogy for “John Q” is: How would you feel if I hired you as a waiter for a modest base salary plus tips, and then after 50 years of doing it that way announced unilaterally that from now on I was keeping your tips (because after all my rent has gone up and the cost of food has doubled). Obviously the waiter could no longer afford to work for the restaurant and I think in the view of the public it would be fairly reprehensible of the owner to do it.

I wonder if anyone has ever broached the idea of raising the WGA minimums in exchange for buying out the back-end? As I recall during the commercial strike something along those lines was proposed to the actors. I’m sure tracking residuals and paying them out is not an inconsequential expense to the studios. Maybe they’d be better off giving that money to the artists in the form of higher up front fees.

And 59#, I’m not sure that the real reason for residuals, but I think it’s a good way of thinking about them

In reply to # 15: “The correct analogy is that someone INVENTS a whole new type of toilet (or toilet valve or whatever). Under patent law, he or she gets a residual payment (royalty) every time someone buys that toilet.”

That is nonsense. I am the inventor on a few patents. Generally the ‘assignee’ of the patent is your employer .. and you get no more money from it. No royalties. Nada.

That’s the deal you generally agree to in your employment contract. Despite your claim, there is no requirement in patent law to get a payment every time someone buys the invention. In other fields, original writing while an employee also gets zero royalties or residuals.

I’m not complaining - that’s the deal I chose to agree to when I become an employee. Writers in the WGA have chosen to get a better deal .. good on them.

A design engineer who is hired as an employee to create a new invention by a company gets zero residuals. A writer who is hired as an employee to write episode # 283 of an existing TV series gets residuals.

I can’t really see that it is a ‘moral’ argument … that the writer of episode #283 has a moral right to the residuals when compared to the inventor.

The ‘magic cake’ argument applies 100% to many other employees of a companies.

eg:

1. Computer programmers who may create an entire software package for their employers.
2. The writer of the instruction manual for your $30,000 car
3. The writer of episode #283 of a soap opera
4. The staff-writer of a press-release

Can we make a logical argument for SOME of these employees getting residuals and not others? Clearly it isn’t a case of ‘artistic worth’ , ‘usefulness to society’ or effort. They are all employees of their company so it isn’t that, either.

Mac

(PS: I think I’m basically just agreeing with John Q’s post #63)

If there were only one time payments the conversation over a fair script payment would be something like:

• Writer: This script is worth $12.5M, because it’s so good it enables you to make $500M over all the new ways you will use it for the next 50 years.
• Studio: This script is worth $1k, because I’m not going to even recover my costs on this piece of garbage (but yes, I want to buy it anyway)

So what’s the solution when you can’t tell who’s right at contract time? Share the risk and reward into the future. If it’s good based on the how it does in the market, I’ll pay you a lot, if not, I’ll pay you a little.

From my outsider point of view, this strike is simply about fair compensation. But could it be that why royalties/residuals are most fair in these situations is just too subtle for a John Q public soundbite?

Just so people know, the architecture comment was mostly likely inspired by the moronic Brooks Barnes article in the New York Times a while back.

It’s also a comment I’ve heard (like the plumber one) before in discussions about the strike. Hopefully Brooks isn’t that influential and it’s just a coincidence.

…and Yet another Anonymous Writer,

I read somewhere that the median salary for a WGA member was $5,000. Not sure how accurate that it.

I like analogies. I like cake. Put the two together and I’m happy.

But maybe explaining the screenwriters position isn’t so complex as to require an analogy.

Certainly the book thing doesn’t work. You pick a book up, you know in a half second who the author is. You watch a movie, you have to sit there for ten minutes after it’s done. The screen is a collaborative medium. The closest thing to an author is the writer-director. But the cinematographer and a few other people might have something to say about that.

And writers certainly aren’t the only elves in the tree baking magic cake.

Analogies, being analogies, always break down. And writers can’t afford a plothole in this story.

Maybe the easiset way to explain it is to say that screenwriters write screenplays which get made into movies or tv programs and the more successful those movies and shows are and the more money they make, the more money the screenwriter should make.

Screenwriters don’t write movies or tv shows. No one does. No amount of writing will bring a movie into existence. We write screenplays. It is a unique art and the standard of fairness is not the same as writing a book or baking magic cakes.

It is what it is.

And yes the production company/studio that pays to make the movie or show takes the biggest risk and deserves the biggest cut. But they minimize their risk by choosing talent.

The writer can write a great script and have a great director fail the script and make terrible choices. The wrong cinematographer. The wrong shots. The wrong music. And it fails and there are no residuals for anyone to argue over. And no one is going to say “well the script was great, let’s send the writer a dime.”

But if things do work out, the writer… the FIRST PERSON who has to be at his best in order to make a successful movie… deserves fair compensation. A reasonable percentage of the dollars generated by his creative effort… whether that dollar was generated by the sale of a DVD or an itunes download or what have you.

We don’t need a fair deal on DVDs. We need a fair deal on use. Period.

Then we won’t have to be back here in a decade fighting over direct-to-brain total submersion downloads or whatever the hell is around the corner. This is the 21st century and new media comes and goes too quickly to be chasing in slow motion every 20 years.

That seems simple. Easy as pie… if not cake.

The John Q Public soundbite…

Of course, everyone wants to be understood and apprciated by the masses, but John Q Public can’t name three screenwriters. His understanding will not win the strike. His opposition will not lose the strike.

But Johnny Q’s refusal to sit home and watch reruns and reality horseshite indefinitely causing revenues to plummet… that’s what we need from Johnny Q. We just need him to be true to himself.

We don’t need no stinkin’ soundbite. Just give Johnny Q his remote and he’ll do the rest.

I like the analogy comparing a script to a novel but the realist in me sees another analogy and I’ve had trouble justifying residuals under this scenario (until this morning - bear with me a moment) - a script and a painting.

I buy a Wyland painting. I can charge admission to others who want to see the painting I purchased. HOWEVER, I cannot make copies of the Wyland painting and sell them (or even give them away). I didn’t purchase that right.

The studio/prodco purchases a spec I wrote. The studio can charge others to see the movie it made from my script. The studios/prodcos can make a single film and show it to whomever they want for whatever they want to charge. BUT if they want to distribute copies of that film (another print, a video tape, a DVD, a download), they have to pay me for the right to do that as I would have had to pay Wyland for permission to make copies of the original painting.

For stubborn people like me, this might be an easier-to-understand comparison. Residuals are payment for permission to make copies of the single original film.

Just tryin’ to help here. If you don’t like this suggestion, please continue to badmouth Craig since he started it all with the magic cake. :-)

There might be a simpler response to the “I don’t pay my plumber every time I flush the toilet” thing:

Imagine two plumbers. Plumber #1 can fix your toilet, but it will only last for 10 more flushes before it breaks again. Plumber #2 can fix your toilet and it will last for 10,000 flushes.

Which plumber will you pay more?

So it turns out, you kind of [i]are[/i] paying your plumber for each flush. You’re just paying in advance.

The thing is, your plumber has a pretty good idea of what you’re going to be doing with your toilet after he fixes it. It’s easy for him to build that cost-per-flush into his upfront payment.

Scripts are different. When you have a script, you can’t know if it will languish unmade in development hell, or if it will get made and become an evergreen classic that makes billions for the studio.

So residuals are a way of hedging your bet. We’re saying, “Pay me upfront what you think this intellectual property is worth. But if it turns out to be worth billions more than that, I want a little share of the profits I’m making for you.”

Ted,

“What does the AMPTP need to do for you to consider us to have won this strike?”

Give us magic milk to go with the damn cake.

Vince,

“John Q Public can’t name three screenwriters. “

Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and George Clooney.

Haven’t seen ‘em on the lines, yet, but I’m sure they’re out there…

As for residuals, Jesus, people. We’re really discussing whether or not we deserve ‘em?

I write. You buy what I write, you pay me.

It’s that fucking simple, and that is the MORAL ARGUMENT (Sorry, Ted. I know you hate those) that underlies what we’re fighting for… what we’re ALWAYS fighting for.)

Josh Olson wrote in response to Ted’s simple question: “Give us magic milk to go with the damn cake.”

Please Josh, answer the question.

My bet is you can’t.

I really like Jacob’s analogy. I thought the stock-option scenario made a lot of sense as well.

The problem with the stock option analogy is the failure to consider the downside. If the movie makes less than what was anticipated when the writer was paid, does the writer have to return money? If not, why should he/she participate in unexpected profits?

It was nice to see this article on msnbc.com. It helps to counter that whole $200K/avg dreck. I’ve actually read a number of articles in the past day or two that do a reasonably good job of explaining why the writers are entitled to those extra 4 cents. It’s refreshing to see the PR swinging in the right direction.

It seems to me that analogies are always going to be picked apart and therefore, maybe we need to stop making analogies.

Maybe we should ask why no one is raising hell because JK Rowling makes some money every time someone buys a copy of Harry Potter? Shouldn’t she have just been happy with the money she was paid for writing it the first time?

Since no one seems to begrudge authors their due, I think we should try explaining that what we are paid to write a script is the same as an author’s “advance” against future royalties — except that their percentage is huge and ours is a pittance (I’m a longtime WGA member who has ve written a book, I know what I’m talking about) and once the author has earned back the advance, he or she starts to earn money from the royalties. Thus if the book does well, the author is rewarded. A fair system.

As opposed to a system where, let’s say, the book took over the planet like it did, and JK Rowling was only paid for writing it, and the publishing company pocketed the rest. I think even my deaf aunt would see that as unfair.

I’ll ask her and make sure.

I also thought #32 was a parody of Olson.

But it’s not.

This is a bad sign, Josh.

It’s deeply telling as well. You have to scratch at it, and what’s underneath is this - Craig has spent so much time in his special world that he actually has a hard time justifying residuals to himSELF. He’s so grateful to massa that he’s swallowed the lie that we don’t really deserve residuals. He knows, deep down inside, that we do, but he’s lost sight of why, so he has to go to these massive, absurd and childish lengths to justify them to himself. Honest to God, he’s forgotten why writers deserve to get compensated when someone buys their work. Thus, magic cake.

LOL!

Seems to me that the WGA is tackling the wrong beast altogether.

As long as writing for the screen is not able to be licensed in ways similar to books, this issue will continue to exist and multiply as ways to distribute movies increase.

Use your words to go write up some legislation. And while you’re at it, hover your bodies around some lawmakers instead of of standing outside a studio holding a sign.

I worked for years as an Architect before becoming a Screenwriter. They are very similar jobs. But when I design a building, my client owns the drawings only - I retain ownership of the design, since it is considered my intellectual property. The client can not (nor can anybody else) reproduce that building without paying me. That seldom happens, of course, because buildings have to be built - it would be like having to shoot and edit a movie everytime you wanted a copy. In fact, it happens so seldom that nobody depends on it ever happening. So they pay Architects roughly 10% of the cost of production to make it the first time. If I were to be offered that deal to write a $100M dollar movie, I would cheerfully take my 10 million dollars and give up the residuals.

I’m not even sure a “magic cake” metaphor is necessary. When people ask me why writers should get residuals…I just say, “should a musician get paid something for every record they sell? should an author get paid something for every book they sell?”

They always say yes, like that’s obvious. Then they get it.

In film and television, there are so many people between the writer and the product (producers, diretors, actors, studios) that I think the writers just gets forgotten. They are rarely a part of the marketing so no one hears their names.

And since films and television are much more of a collaboration, the writer gets a lot less in residuals or royalites than most musicians and authors. And as fate would have it, the WGA is asking for a LOT less than either of those two normally get.

That seems to convince people in about 20 seconds.

And honestly, the argument that residuals keep writers afloat during lean times kind of sounds like an argument for a hand out. I know it’s not, but that’s not a good argument. Truth is, even if you’re rolling in dough, you deserve the residuals. It’s simply fair.

CP:

If we were offered 10% of the cost of production, there is no doubt in my mind that almost all writers would take that deal as a buy-out on future residuals.

And come out waaaaaay ahead of what we normally earn.

Jimmy:

I agree that the “residuals keep us afloat” argument is a perilous one to make, for the reason you state.

I have a couple of questions hopefully someone here will be able to answer. Pertaining to TV advertising, can I assume that the ad rate is less for a rerun than a first run? Also, are the nets still offering ratings guarantees or did they learn from their mistake a year or two ago when they ended up having to give the advertisers free spots?

I still don’t understand how this issue over internet residuals is even debatable to anyone.

Are AMPTP people posting on here anonymously or what?

“The studio bosses insisted, however, that the process of creating movies was fundamentally different and more like an industrial assembly line designed to maximize profits (this predated the notion of film as art). The way they saw it, a playwright sold a product while a screenwriter sold a service.

Not surprisingly, it was the studio bosses’ vision that carried the day. They divided and conquered the writers in the 1930s by making special deals with certain favored screenwriters, by threatening to fire any others who sided with the guild — and perhaps most significantly, by paying enough money that writers could not bear to walk away. As Nancy Lynn Schwartz recounted in her 1982 book, “The Hollywood Writers’ Wars,” the producers knew that “an insurrection of this sort had to be stopped.”

The agreement reached with the newly founded Writers Guild in 1942 contained the defining clause that survives to this day: “The studio, hereinafter, referred to as the author …” making it clear where the writer stood after the sale of his work — or service, as it were.

Today, as writers walk picket lines in an effort to persuade the studios to compensate them fairly for their work in newly emerging profit centers such as the Internet, it’s instructive to remember that their predecessors long ago surrendered the fundamental principle of copyright and that they are unlikely ever to get it back.

That’s why the copyright to NBC’s hit series “Heroes” does not belong to Tim Kring, who created it and oversees it as executive producer, but to NBC Universal, the corporation that airs and distributes it (after having invested in its development and production).

Some would say that’s not a bad deal for writer-producers like Kring who, after all, don’t have to put up their own money to develop an idea and who are often handsomely rewarded for their efforts. Writers can earn millions of dollars for a movie script, and in the world of television, those who are perceived as successful can often achieve something close to authorial control.”

Why not solve the strike the easy way. The way the government does, the way the oil companies do. Pass the problem on to the consumer. DVD sales, since I can remember, have cost $18-$20. Why not charge $18.50-$20.50 for each DVD? This way the WGA get their residuals, and there is enough left over for the Directors and Actors. The consumer would not even notice $.50 and the DVD would still sell. You could also pass the download problem to the consumer. $.50 wouldn’t be bad, some might pay it and some might not, and the WGA would have their problem solved. Maybe the SAG and the DGA too.

cp #82

“I worked for years as an Architect before becoming a Screenwriter. They are very similar jobs.”

You make the above statement and then immediately contradict it. They are not similar because the builder is not, in fact, reproducing the exact same building tens of thousands of times over.

I think the book/song arguments are the easiest for the average person to comprehend. Screenwriters surrendered the full copyright protection those artists maintain in an ill advised deal years ago in exchange for the residual system the studio chiefs offered as consolation. And the companies have since continued to invent rationalizations for eliminating what they promised us in exchange for the better thing.

We no like.

TVGuy- there’s just too much downward pressure on consumer prices for this to work. I know it seems like a small incremental increase might not make a difference in DVD sales, but, trust me, it would. And Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest DVD retailer, is known for fiercely negotiating the wholesale prices it pays, down to the last penny. They’d never agree to up their costs/prices like that.

What needs to be factored into the writer’s strike is the question of “how to increase the penalties for thievery and copyright infringement by hack writers” to LONG TERM PRISON INCARCERATION. A lot of those writers marching for their rights steal and infringe against other writers, artists, regular peopkle etc… everyday. For example a hack writer named Tim Kring stole coppyrighted work from two NYC divination artists called “The Twins” and sold it to NBC as his own work, that work became the tv show “Heroes”.

According to stories on the internet “The Twins” filed a lawsuit against Tim Kring and NBC for copyright infringement in a NYC Federal Court. As soon as that story hit the net the character Isaac Mendez was written out, tim said the character “the artist that can paint the future” and his powers were to limiting and could not keep up with the pace of the show. Tim went on to announce all of the storylines were changing with a new cast of actors being added.

Why would a writer change a winning formula? Isn’t the rule “if it’s not broken don’t fix it”? It seems that now that tim could no longer use” The Twins” materials he was now like his friends hit tv show “Lost”, without any winning storylines for Heroes. Left on his own writing talent, season 2 opened with the viewing audience fleeing in droves. Today Tim Kring is own line apologizing for the failure of season 2 of Heroes and pretending he cares about other writers and their rights.

I am not a writer, I work with young children that are homeless. Many live in subway cars, Mc donald’s etc.. Most have already been to jail for jumping the turnstile etc… The question asked daily by these children is why is it when writers commit crimes they are not arrested, finger printed and mugged shot the way most of these kids have experienced?

some of the kids watched the first season of Heroes and I’ve kept up with the lawsuit filed by these artists and I think it’s heinous that Tim Kring is not in jail.

I went out and bought a few books on writing as a career,from what i read in each book integrity and having your own style and stories as a writer is important. That’s not Tim Kring, instead it seems his style is to find other people’s stories or look at other writer’s films and change a few details and put his name on it. For example the artists that Tim copied were first written about in the NY DailyNews in 2004 written by Lloyd Grove. The article said “The Twins” left Texas with a painting to stop September 11, 2001 before it happened. These artists were regular people that belived they had superpower abilities to paint and write the future before it happens on canvas according to the Daily news article. “The Twins” painted and copyrighted a painting in early 2001 called “The Atta Page”, the painting depicted two planes hitting the twin towers in NYC, the message ” a man name Atta attack twin towers sept 11 at 9:00 am ” and the additional message that the name ATTA is in the word manhATTAn. Wasn’t that the storyline for Isaac Mendez? The only thing Tim changed was 9-11-01 to nuclear blast, the race of Isaac and the drug problem . The real life artist that can paint the future said in an interview he does not use drugs to paint the future.

If that’s what being a writer is all about, stealing other people’s lives and work, then the networks owe the writers nothing. I’ve learned a lot about writers and so far a lot of you guys are really negative and not right.

Let’s be honest, if the writers “win” here…there’s not going to be a raising of prices on DVDs, or a lowering of the gigantic salaries of the executives. They’re not going to sit back and go “hmmm, maybe we should be smarter with our other expenses so we can pay writers fairly.”

They are going to cut assistants, mid-managers, pension funds, health care, and benefits for the regular Joes at their companies. Not one hair on the cent of any profit will be harmed.

The “victory” here will be a shifting of the money away from one industry middle class to another. And the only way to really prevent that is if there is a massive upheaval. SAG, DGA, IATSE, AFTRA and WGA would all have to walk at once to prevent it.

Since that probably will not happen here, writers should remain very humble even if there is a victory.

ANALOGIES and MEDIA

What I liked most about Craig’s Magic Cake is that it illustrates that this is not a zero/sum game. Writers are not arguing for a larger piece of a finite pie. Writers are not arguing for someone else’s slice. Writers are fighting for a fair share of an ever increasing stream of revenue generated by the telling of their stories. A stream that is about to be undammed as the advances in IT are on the verge of bringing exponentially larger profits into the studio coffers. That’s why the cake has to be magic to make the analogy work.

Writing for the screen is not similar to books. A book is a final retail product. A screenplay is not (until the movie is successful and the script is published as a book).

Because of this key difference, the pay system cannot translate.

A screenplay is purchased for the purpose of making a show or movie which is the final product.

The screenplay is the key element necessary to make the movie. You can’t tell the story on screen if no one has told it on paper.

Which gets to the crux of the matter. While Ted and a few others want to insist that 120 formatted pages are our product, obviously it is not. Those pages are our medium for delivery of the real product.

Our product is story. We deliver our product in the medium of ink smears on paper or bytes in an email attachment. But the product is story. Whether that story is an original or whether it is adapted from another medium to work on screen, we are in the storytelling business.

The only way we’re ever going to get in the driver’s seat similar to the book author or the playwright is if we stop selling 120 formatted pages and start selling stories that happen to be told in 120 formatted pages. There’s a key difference. Stories we can control and license.

I understand that this is not going to happen any time soon if ever. So, in the meantime, writers who want to see their visions make it to the screen intact must push to direct their own scripts.

AMPTP spends their time berating the writer’s job and trying to equate it to blue collar work to win the PR war and convince the public that all screenwriters are rich and greedy. They’d love to go back to a studio system, chain writers to a desk, pay them $600 a week and crack the whip. “You’ll write what I tell you to write, maggot.” But then, why spend the overhead when so many people calling themselves screenwriters are already subservient to the visions of their masters, lacking their own.

We only help AMPTP when we start using analogies about toilets. Looking at the crap down at my local cineplex, I can understand why some writers might naturally corelate their product to commodes, but I don’t think that’s constructive for the purposes of the strike.

No. You don’t have to pay a residual for every flush. But then, you don’t have to pay a residual every time you watch that DVD either, though in some cases they have the same entertainment value.

15 years ago, only about 10% of homes were online. VHS was king. Things have changed. And the message is not the medium. If we dwell on media, the new MBA will be obsolete the moment it’s written.

The only thing that keeps DVDs alive now is the nostalgia for the physical product. Soon enough, a home entertainment system will be primarily internet oriented. There will be two dominant models. In one, the ownership model, you will have an enormous hard drive on which you store all your movies, music, photos, etc. You will watch them at the push of a button. You will pay to download them. You might back them up on DVD, but most likely, you’ll back them up on a secondary drive or partition.

Or, the lease/membership model, in which you will pay a certain amount each month for access to an online library of films that you can access as long as you pay your monthly fee. Nothing to store. Nothing to back up.

But both will generate enormous revenues that do not require the production of plastic that must be packaged and shipped and stocked on shelves in stores. Which means that they can be sold for far less than a DVD and still generate more profit. And this means that the consumer who can purchase one DVD a month can buy or rent numerous movies with the same budget, generating even more revenue for the industry simply because it doesn’t have to be diluted through a dozen other industries to be produced and delivered.

The economic potential makes this a certainty. The WGA must position us now if we are to have a seat at this table.

This is the 21st century. Instead of dealing for what we should have had when DVDs were new, let’s take media out of the picture and make sure we get paid a fair percentage for USE. Period. Othewise, we’ll be chasing developing media forever and watching it and the MBA become obsolete faster and faster.

“Residual for USE” is the phrase that petrifies AMPTA. They want to keep this strike about “media.” “Emerging media” sounds good, but it leaves too much for the lawyers to screw us with. “Use” works better.

If our stories generate a dollar, whether its from DVD, advertising, downloading, happy meals or commemorative plates, we should be paid a fair percentage. Period. And all new uses should fall automatically into place with a percentage going to the writer.

If those emerging media fail, that percentage won’t yield much anyway. If they succeed, the will. Either way, it will be fair.

And next time we have to negotiate a new contract, all we’ll have to do is raise the dollar amounts on the front end and keep writing.

If you want to continue using analogies, I believe this might qualify as Josh’s “magic milk.”

But I fear the deal will end up being more akin to a magic toilet. No matter how AMPTP shines up the porcelain… we can smell what’s inside… and it ain’t magic cake anymore.

I’m not a WGA member. I spent ten years or so as a standup, and have lots of longtime friends who are in the WGA. But sadly for me, my writing skills were more suited to reporting than scriptwriting.

So I’m a sympathetic audience, and one that writes about TV every day. So here’s my take on a couple of things in this thread.

Yes, not every “average joe” understands why the strike happened. But just about every American has dealt with unfair compensation, greedy management and the impact of the Internet. When they’re given a chance, most people do “get” it.

And the explosion of blogs has had one side-effect that helps the WGA. If you’re ever blogged daily, you understand how hard it is to crank something out worthwhile. Even if you’re blogging about your cat, it’s not easy.

Have faith in the public, and somewhat more faith in the press. Yes, the big media journalists won’t have much interest, but there are a lot of other options.

As far as not talking to the press, I understand why the WGA would want that. But honestly, if you’re going to engage in long threads on sites like this one, you would probably be better off spending the time reaching out to the public and to smaller news organizations.

The biggest advantage the WGA has over management is that they have a good story to tell. And who better to tell the story than a bunch of writers?

rick@allyourtv.com

Completely a side-note, and don’t want to distract from this very important topic, but this is worth recognizing:

“Residuals are not like magic cake.”

Probably the funniest line in the history of the world.

Wow.

I mean…wow.

Everyone, let’s not forget what’s most important. Right now there are millions of people that have been affected by this strike. Before they go to bed they stare at the ceiling and wonder how much longer they can go without a paycheck. They wake up in the morning and think about the day they may have to ask their teenage son to recommend him/her for a job at the motherfucking Gap. They think about this strike lasting until January and the day they have to explain to a 5 year old that Christmas is gonna be a little different this year.

They think about their healthcare running out.

They think about pulling their parents out of the decent nursing home to the one where asbestos lines the walls.

They think about not being able to feed a family of 5.

They is Us.

This is fucking serious. But no, we’re 90 post deep in a thread about a goddamn analogy. How out of touch do you have to be to attack a fucking analogy? How totally unaffected do you have to be?

Guess what? If the AMPTP or the general public do indeed read this blog, we don’t need to worry about leaking strategies. Maybe we should worry about looking like infantile assholes that have nothing better to do than discuss what the proper analogy should be.

This is sick.

Kevin, the reason coming up with a strong way to explain the writers side is important because it will help END THE STRIKE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

The writers actually understand and care that the strike is causing a lot of tragedy for innocent bystanders.

Do they AMPTP companies care? Doesn’t seem like it. Not even a little.

I’m tired of writers being called greedy and selfish when that is EXACTLY what they are standing up against.

If the AMPTP actually cared about all the people this is effecting, they would end the strike today with a fair deal.

But they don’t because they know people like you will be short-sighted, and blame the writers. And they’re totally off the hook.

Actually Wal-Mart make very little on a new release DVD sale. Often selling it at a loss. The studios pocket the vast majority of the retail price.