Maybe not in your industry. I’ve seen game projects cancelled after a key creative person left.
You’re missing my point though. People seem to think that there’s something wrong with the writers walking off the job, particularly if it means that other employees are affected. But as you just admitted, if you thought you weren’t being paid what you deserve, you’d do the same thing.
Why is it okay for **Diogenes ** to quit, but not okay for the writers to strike?
You are aware that physicians have gone on strike before, right?
Just checking.
Quitting and striking are two different things. I wouldn’t have a problem with the writers quitting. If they don’t like the way the industry works, let them go work for a living.
Well, that just means you have a problem with residuals in general. Because, according how to your view of how things should work the writers should get paid for the script and then be done with it. I imagine some writers would like that, because if things were set up like that the initial payment for the script would be much much higher. Residuals are a form of deferred compensation - writers get paid less up front. If the show is not a success and does not live forever in reruns they are done. Producers aren’t out that much and it’s not a huge loss to put out a loser. Show is a big hit. Producers make big money, and have to share small bits of it with the writers in perpetuity. Residuals benefit both the writers and the producers.
Now, if things move towards streaming internet content the situation gets mixed up. The writers are still getting the lower upfront fees, but these showsing on itunes, these showings streamed on the internet these showings that exist in anyway that is not traditional over the air they get no money for it. That’s win win for the producers! yay them!
So, what I am saying is yes. They did already get paid for it the first time. But, they agreed to less money because of the knowledge of residuals. If the internet is going to be a place where a majority of reruns are aired in the future (As it very well might be) the rules are going to have to change. Either, residuals have to exist there, or the upfront payments will have to be higher.
Anyway. I think that’s maybe where the problem lies. You think they should get paid once and be done with it. They think that they take less up front, so they should get more later as they have for decades.
pat
Hey! Dipstick! Do you forget the Webisodes we were asked to write and never got paid for! Yeah! The ones our coworkers were asked to write, which then were seized by the network and were declared “for promotional use”, and therefore never requiring payment? Right! Those!
Residuals? Never paid! They made hundreds of thousands off those! Hell, one even won an emmy award! My coworkers never saw a bleedin’ red halfpenny off their work!
Why should employees get to cash in stock options? After all, they already got paid ONCE. Greedy things.
The writers want to be paid for reruns because for a hit show a significant amount of revenue might not appear until long after the show’s initial run. Look at a program like MAS*H. It’s been showing in reruns for 25 years, in no small part because of how well it was written. But it would have been IMPOSSIBLE for the studio to pay the writers up front for the value they brought to production. The studio didn’t have the money yet. They made over 25 years of syndication.
I can’t figure out why you’re so tweaked by the idea of residuals. It’s actually a great way to tie compensation to the the quality of the product. Crappy shows vanish quickly and never earn their creators a dime. Great shows like MAS*H bring their creators big rewards.
I have no idea what a “webisode” is so I can’t really comment on this. I’ve never heard that word before. Did anybody promise the writers they were going to get paid for those?
Lesson learned, I guess. The writers can refuse to write free “webisodes” from now on. That doesn’t require a fullscale strike. Just say you want your 50 bucks up front next time before you write a “webisode.”
Why do you see striking and quitting as being so fundamentally different?
Yep, slackers, bums and mooches the lot of them. It’s amazing the producers didn’t just fire them all years ago.
For someone with such strong opinions on the matter, you know surprisingly little about the details of the contract dispute.
The distinction between online and broadcast content isn’t always so clear. The writers may not know in advance how their work is going to be used.
It’s the difference between leaving your job and just refusing todo your job.
By the way, simply quitting a job does not include an attempt to prevent anyone else from doing the job in your place. If you want to quit, quit, but don’t be a dog in the manger.
But the writers don’t have a contract. Without a contract there is no job.
How is the guild playing dog in the manger? They can’t *prevent * the production companies from hiring non-union talent. All they can do is refuse to work in the future with companies that do.
And, if it’s as trivial to replace them as you claim, that’s not much of a threat at all … .
You’ve proven yourself that writing scripts isn’t easy. You tried it, were given far more time than a real TV writer has, and did a bad job.
What IS your problem? I’m honestly curious as to why you’re so venemous about something that has nothing to do with you.
That threat pretty much means that they’re preventing the production companies from hiring non-union talent.
You people are all wasting your time.
Diogenes, in his position as Sole Decider of all that is Good and Right in the Universe. has decreed that all television writing is crap, that writers have no choice but to accept whatever undeserved compensation the Powers That Be deign to dispense to them, and that writers should go out and get honest jobs instead pretending that what they do actually has any value, since any schlub on the street could do it just as well.
His mind is made up, and no amount of discussion will change it. From what I’ve seen, his only response to every point brought up has been a variation of “I know the Truth, and I reject your attempt to introduce facts into this discussion which contradict the Truth.”
Not at all. Plenty of small production companies run non-union shops. No one is forced to hire union talent.
Right. It’s an implied threat, and you know it. Sure, go hire “the others,” but when this is over, see if you get any work from the other 12,000 of us again!
Of course it’s a threat. It’s no different than me walking into my boss’s office and telling him I’m going to quit unless he gives me a raise. He’s free to say “screw you” and try to replace me and the production companies are free to say “screw you” as well.
The difference is, the WGA knows that the studios recognize the talent and experience of the WGA. They’re using that as leverage to indirectly prevent the studios from hiring non-union work, out of fear of not having WGA writers as an option in the future.