When will writers strike resolve?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Again, why do any of them deserve residuals? Most of us are paid for the work we do. If it’s successful after we move onto another job, we don’t get residuals.

But are you creating something your ex-employer will use for years to make themselves more money?

My sibling works in biomedical engineering. His employment contract states that his employer owns the rights to 99% of all outputs/ip created by him. He gets a small portion of compensation but I forget what type of compensation it is (money, stock, etc.). And I think then the 1% only kicks in if the ip is acquired for X price or X units.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, why do any of them deserve residuals? Most of us are paid for the work we do. If it’s successful after we move onto another job, we don’t get residuals.

Residuals do not work like YOUR job's pay works. Period. No comparison.

You seem not to know that people get paid less up front on the understanding that they will then be paid residuals over time, in amounts based on things like how much a show is viewed. They are not making a big wad of cash up front and then residuals are extra goodies on top of that. Residuals are part of the compensation they're owed for the work. Imagine if your job paid you a much smaller amount up front then said, we'll pay you the rest we owe you, dribbled out in tiny checks over a long, long time, IF the thing you built is still working well for us in a year, two years, five years....That's the deal. It sucks. It benefits only the studios and streamers, who then turn around and say, "Oh, that show isn't getting many eyeballs on streaming, here's a check for 15 cents, sorry!" And 15 cents is not an exaggeration for effect, PP. Many, many residual checks are for pennies. Often that's based on streamers claiming shows aren't being watched. Guess what? Old-school "TV ratings" don't really exist for most streaming so the streamers can just make up whatever they want about a show's "success" and no one can challenge them.

This is also why some streamers have pulled shows off entirely and won't show them at all. The streamers now don't want to pay anyone involved any of the owed residuals, so they've yanked less-known shows from all streaming. Gone. Max (HBO) did this just recently. So, how would you like it if even your tiny dribble of the remainder of your pay ended completely, and you'd never see the rest of your compensation, because your old bosses stowed your work product in a vault just to avoid paying you?

DP here, trying to understand how this works. Aren't the studios afraid that writers will simply leave the field and there won't be anyone left to write for the shows? I just don't see how this gets resolved in a way that's good for either side if writers take on all the risk of not getting compensated.

To give an example, I used to do a lot of proposal writing. Compensation was done one of two ways:

1) An hourly rate for my expertise as an independent consultant. Company takes on all the risk and keeps all profits if they win the contract.
2) A salary as an employee of the company, plus a percentage of profits for the contracts I helped to win. The risk is split between me and the company. I had the opportunity to make a lot of money, but someone who's not very good wouldn't see the extra money.

I apologize if I'm missing something. Just struggling here to see how this gets resolved in a sustainable way.

AI will replace lots of writing jobs. They will be able to have a whole movie script be printed out in 20 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, why do any of them deserve residuals? Most of us are paid for the work we do. If it’s successful after we move onto another job, we don’t get residuals.

But are you creating something your ex-employer will use for years to make themselves more money?

My sibling works in biomedical engineering. His employment contract states that his employer owns the rights to 99% of all outputs/ip created by him. He gets a small portion of compensation but I forget what type of compensation it is (money, stock, etc.). And I think then the 1% only kicks in if the ip is acquired for X price or X units.

DP here but why are they entitled to residuals? They didn't fund the project. Let them get paid for their work. It's hard to have sympathy for them if they want more than that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, why do any of them deserve residuals? Most of us are paid for the work we do. If it’s successful after we move onto another job, we don’t get residuals.

But are you creating something your ex-employer will use for years to make themselves more money?

My sibling works in biomedical engineering. His employment contract states that his employer owns the rights to 99% of all outputs/ip created by him. He gets a small portion of compensation but I forget what type of compensation it is (money, stock, etc.). And I think then the 1% only kicks in if the ip is acquired for X price or X units.

DP here but why are they entitled to residuals? They didn't fund the project. Let them get paid for their work. It's hard to have sympathy for them if they want more than that.

They’re entitled because they’re creating intellectual property. Just like painters, engineers, and inventors. If some can be sold repeatedly (story, software, t-shirt design) the person who makes it gets some portion of that sale unless the sell the rights to someone else.

-engineer who gets the equivalent of residuals on the patents with my name on them from my employer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, why do any of them deserve residuals? Most of us are paid for the work we do. If it’s successful after we move onto another job, we don’t get residuals.

Residuals do not work like YOUR job's pay works. Period. No comparison.

You seem not to know that people get paid less up front on the understanding that they will then be paid residuals over time, in amounts based on things like how much a show is viewed. They are not making a big wad of cash up front and then residuals are extra goodies on top of that. Residuals are part of the compensation they're owed for the work. Imagine if your job paid you a much smaller amount up front then said, we'll pay you the rest we owe you, dribbled out in tiny checks over a long, long time, IF the thing you built is still working well for us in a year, two years, five years....That's the deal. It sucks. It benefits only the studios and streamers, who then turn around and say, "Oh, that show isn't getting many eyeballs on streaming, here's a check for 15 cents, sorry!" And 15 cents is not an exaggeration for effect, PP. Many, many residual checks are for pennies. Often that's based on streamers claiming shows aren't being watched. Guess what? Old-school "TV ratings" don't really exist for most streaming so the streamers can just make up whatever they want about a show's "success" and no one can challenge them.

This is also why some streamers have pulled shows off entirely and won't show them at all. The streamers now don't want to pay anyone involved any of the owed residuals, so they've yanked less-known shows from all streaming. Gone. Max (HBO) did this just recently. So, how would you like it if even your tiny dribble of the remainder of your pay ended completely, and you'd never see the rest of your compensation, because your old bosses stowed your work product in a vault just to avoid paying you?

Then get rid of residuals. Get the money up front

The cast of Friends each get 20 million a year and haven’t worked on it since 2004.

And again, most of us are not paid up front much for our jobs. And if my work contributes to the future success of the business, I get nothing. Example, installation of electric lines, cable lines, cell towers, etc. The more installation the more money a company makes but not the installer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, why do any of them deserve residuals? Most of us are paid for the work we do. If it’s successful after we move onto another job, we don’t get residuals.

But are you creating something your ex-employer will use for years to make themselves more money?

My sibling works in biomedical engineering. His employment contract states that his employer owns the rights to 99% of all outputs/ip created by him. He gets a small portion of compensation but I forget what type of compensation it is (money, stock, etc.). And I think then the 1% only kicks in if the ip is acquired for X price or X units.

DP here but why are they entitled to residuals? They didn't fund the project. Let them get paid for their work. It's hard to have sympathy for them if they want more than that.

They’re entitled because they’re creating intellectual property. Just like painters, engineers, and inventors. If some can be sold repeatedly (story, software, t-shirt design) the person who makes it gets some portion of that sale unless the sell the rights to someone else.

-engineer who gets the equivalent of residuals on the patents with my name on them from my employer

The painter only gets paid once. The buyer may make more on re-sale of the picture but the painter gets nothing.

[Anonymous]

Can someone explain why some talk shows are running with no objection but the others that are starting up are getting kicked in the gut?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, why do any of them deserve residuals? Most of us are paid for the work we do. If it’s successful after we move onto another job, we don’t get residuals.

But are you creating something your ex-employer will use for years to make themselves more money?

My sibling works in biomedical engineering. His employment contract states that his employer owns the rights to 99% of all outputs/ip created by him. He gets a small portion of compensation but I forget what type of compensation it is (money, stock, etc.). And I think then the 1% only kicks in if the ip is acquired for X price or X units.

DP here but why are they entitled to residuals? They didn't fund the project. Let them get paid for their work. It's hard to have sympathy for them if they want more than that.

They’re entitled because they’re creating intellectual property. Just like painters, engineers, and inventors. If some can be sold repeatedly (story, software, t-shirt design) the person who makes it gets some portion of that sale unless the sell the rights to someone else.

-engineer who gets the equivalent of residuals on the patents with my name on them from my employer

The painter only gets paid once. The buyer may make more on re-sale of the picture but the painter gets nothing.

+1 Maybe the compensation model needs to change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, why do any of them deserve residuals? Most of us are paid for the work we do. If it’s successful after we move onto another job, we don’t get residuals.

Residuals do not work like YOUR job's pay works. Period. No comparison.

You seem not to know that people get paid less up front on the understanding that they will then be paid residuals over time, in amounts based on things like how much a show is viewed. They are not making a big wad of cash up front and then residuals are extra goodies on top of that. Residuals are part of the compensation they're owed for the work. Imagine if your job paid you a much smaller amount up front then said, we'll pay you the rest we owe you, dribbled out in tiny checks over a long, long time, IF the thing you built is still working well for us in a year, two years, five years....That's the deal. It sucks. It benefits only the studios and streamers, who then turn around and say, "Oh, that show isn't getting many eyeballs on streaming, here's a check for 15 cents, sorry!" And 15 cents is not an exaggeration for effect, PP. Many, many residual checks are for pennies. Often that's based on streamers claiming shows aren't being watched. Guess what? Old-school "TV ratings" don't really exist for most streaming so the streamers can just make up whatever they want about a show's "success" and no one can challenge them.

This is also why some streamers have pulled shows off entirely and won't show them at all. The streamers now don't want to pay anyone involved any of the owed residuals, so they've yanked less-known shows from all streaming. Gone. Max (HBO) did this just recently. So, how would you like it if even your tiny dribble of the remainder of your pay ended completely, and you'd never see the rest of your compensation, because your old bosses stowed your work product in a vault just to avoid paying you?

DP here, trying to understand how this works. Aren't the studios afraid that writers will simply leave the field and there won't be anyone left to write for the shows? I just don't see how this gets resolved in a way that's good for either side if writers take on all the risk of not getting compensated.

To give an example, I used to do a lot of proposal writing. Compensation was done one of two ways:

1) An hourly rate for my expertise as an independent consultant. Company takes on all the risk and keeps all profits if they win the contract.
2) A salary as an employee of the company, plus a percentage of profits for the contracts I helped to win. The risk is split between me and the company. I had the opportunity to make a lot of money, but someone who's not very good wouldn't see the extra money.

I apologize if I'm missing something. Just struggling here to see how this gets resolved in a sustainable way.

AI will replace lots of writing jobs. They will be able to have a whole movie script be printed out in 20 minutes.

AI is in its infancy. Churning out movie scripts is way down the line. It’ll be a *very* long time before AI can act as anything more than a junior writer.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/09/14/msn-publishes-heartless-obituary-for-nba-player-likely-written-by-ai/amp/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain why some talk shows are running with no objection but the others that are starting up are getting kicked in the gut?

Drew Barrymore is deservedly getting kicked in the gut. She initially made noise about supporting the WGA strike and now is claiming, ridiculously, that her show is "news" content and "informs" people, all because she has a segment called "Drew's News." She is trying to pretend her chat show is actually journalism -- journalism (as in shows in news departments, like Good Morning America etc.) is NOT part of the WGA strike. For an excellent, excoriating and funny short take explaining why Barrymore's return is crappy of her, see Under The Desk News on Instagram. Even non-Instagram folks should be able to see this post:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxDb9BRsZAt/

Bill Maher says he'll just do interviews with no scripted material and he (a writer himself) won't write anything. Whatever. While he may be skirting the legalities of the strike, it's disingenuous and unsupportive of him to go back to the show.

[Anonymous]

The writers have celebrities helping them. Why can't these same celebrities help other unions?! I don't have pity for these writers. Hope they get back to working soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TBH I haven’t even noticed and I doubt I am the only one. Plenty to watch on streaming. I think the strike isn’t having that big of effect so there isn’t a reason for them to take any action.

Ah, but the price of BritBox just went up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, why do any of them deserve residuals? Most of us are paid for the work we do. If it’s successful after we move onto another job, we don’t get residuals.

But are you creating something your ex-employer will use for years to make themselves more money?

My sibling works in biomedical engineering. His employment contract states that his employer owns the rights to 99% of all outputs/ip created by him. He gets a small portion of compensation but I forget what type of compensation it is (money, stock, etc.). And I think then the 1% only kicks in if the ip is acquired for X price or X units.

DP here but why are they entitled to residuals? They didn't fund the project. Let them get paid for their work. It's hard to have sympathy for them if they want more than that.

They’re entitled because they’re creating intellectual property. Just like painters, engineers, and inventors. If some can be sold repeatedly (story, software, t-shirt design) the person who makes it gets some portion of that sale unless the sell the rights to someone else.

-engineer who gets the equivalent of residuals on the patents with my name on them from my employer

The painter only gets paid once. The buyer may make more on re-sale of the picture but the painter gets nothing.

+1 Maybe the compensation model needs to change.

In that case, writers need to be paid a significant amount years before the movie even airs. Do you think studios would agree to that? I’m not a writer but I expect the writers would accept no residuals but an hourly rate that resulted in their being able to make a living wage working a normal number of hours per year. I doubt the studios would be willing to pay it though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain why some talk shows are running with no objection but the others that are starting up are getting kicked in the gut?

Drew Barrymore is deservedly getting kicked in the gut. She initially made noise about supporting the WGA strike and now is claiming, ridiculously, that her show is "news" content and "informs" people, all because she has a segment called "Drew's News." She is trying to pretend her chat show is actually journalism -- journalism (as in shows in news departments, like Good Morning America etc.) is NOT part of the WGA strike. For an excellent, excoriating and funny short take explaining why Barrymore's return is crappy of her, see Under The Desk News on Instagram. Even non-Instagram folks should be able to see this post:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxDb9BRsZAt/

Bill Maher says he'll just do interviews with no scripted material and he (a writer himself) won't write anything. Whatever. While he may be skirting the legalities of the strike, it's disingenuous and unsupportive of him to go back to the show.

I’m not a fan of Drew, but her show is no different than GMA or Live with Kelly and Mark. They trot out a celeb and chat. They trot out a chef or health guru and chat. I suspect they actually could do this without writers. Producers pull the show together.

Ditto for Maher. He can interview guests without writers. He can write his own monologue as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain why some talk shows are running with no objection but the others that are starting up are getting kicked in the gut?

Drew Barrymore is deservedly getting kicked in the gut. She initially made noise about supporting the WGA strike and now is claiming, ridiculously, that her show is "news" content and "informs" people, all because she has a segment called "Drew's News." She is trying to pretend her chat show is actually journalism -- journalism (as in shows in news departments, like Good Morning America etc.) is NOT part of the WGA strike. For an excellent, excoriating and funny short take explaining why Barrymore's return is crappy of her, see Under The Desk News on Instagram. Even non-Instagram folks should be able to see this post:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxDb9BRsZAt/

Bill Maher says he'll just do interviews with no scripted material and he (a writer himself) won't write anything. Whatever. While he may be skirting the legalities of the strike, it's disingenuous and unsupportive of him to go back to the show.

I’m not a fan of Drew, but her show is no different than GMA or Live with Kelly and Mark. They trot out a celeb and chat. They trot out a chef or health guru and chat. I suspect they actually could do this without writers. Producers pull the show together.

Ditto for Maher. He can interview guests without writers. He can write his own monologue as well.

Same for Drew. And The Talk is supposedly coming back. I don’t get why some are still producing and others are not. Even the night shows could come back on without a monologue.

The strike needs to be over. The TV studios have planned for this strike. NBC has two new shows premiering, they all will probably bring over some of their streaming shows (CBS already started), new game shows, etc. and movies can start going overseas and get non-SAG members to star. I don’t see a win here for those on strike.