I have an idea for the writers and was wondering what the writers here think of it:
Graduated residuals for new media. For the first 2 years, writers get no residuals for new media. Then, starting in the third year, the writer gets 25% of their normal residuals for a year, then 50% for a year, then 75% for a year, then starting in the 6th year the residuals are the same as for on-air broadcasts. This gives the studios a 5 year or so “grace period” to be able to try and get new media off the ground without residuals cutting into the bottom line too much. This also lets the writers concede something that won’t screw them over for 20 years.
My understanding is that during the last strike, after about 5 months on strike the writers couldn’t take it anymore and caved. Not surprising, since the studios can get along without writers much easier than writers can get along without eating. That’s how the writers ended up screwed out of DVD royalties in the first place.
With this scheme, the writers would have lost out on all DVD residuals for the equivalent of 3.5 years, which would mean up to around 1991. Then they’d have been getting full residuals for the last 16 years.
I’m not interested in nitpicking the details. “They’ll redefine the starting points.” “They’ll redefine what makes the media new.” Blah blah blah, I don’t care. I’m just curious: broad strokes, whaddya think?
That’s close to what the writers agreed to last time. A reduced rate to allow a new market to be developed. And what’s result? The studios are now trying to pretend that that special development rate is the normal rate (and judging from this thread they’ve convinced a lot of uniformed people).
As for grace periods, if you accept the studios’ version of economics, they’re still claiming that the videotape market is a developing market. However most non-studio observers would feel that videotape sales have peaked and gone into an irreversible decline. In fact, in a few more years, video sales figures may be low enough that the studios will finally agree to restore the standard royalty rate. Why should they argue about a few percentage points when they’re only selling a thousand units a year?
If the writers strike had a theme song it would be “won’t get fooled again”. As far as the studios are concerned, a fair deal is the studio gets all the milk while the cow’s alive and the writers get all the milk after the cow is dead.
No it isn’t. The writers are still getting below-market residuals on DVDs, compared to what I outlined, which would have meant full residuals for the past 15 or so years.
What you suggested was just a variation on the same idea - that the writers should accept a temporary lowering of royalties. These suggestions are based on the premise that the money “belongs” to the studios and the writers are asking for a hand-out - a premise that the studios have apparently been successful in selling to a lot of people.
Maybe the writers need to reframe the situation. They could start arguing that like other authors they own the copyrights to their work and they’re just negotiating with the studios over how much the studios will pay to lease their ideas.
That’s kind of my point. The idea that a show somehow exists independently of the people who wrote it seems strange to me. If the screenwriters aren’t creating a show, who is? Do you think that the guy who said “we’re going to make a show about six people living in Manhattan” single-handedly created Friends in its entirety and all the writers did was fill in some dialogue? Who created Hamlet? Shakespeare? Or was it the cast and crew? Or maybe the guy who owned the Globe Theatre?
But my point is that after a book is written, it is the sole product that needs to be sold. After a script is written, there must be casting and directing and set builders and costumers and makeup staff and on and on and on. It’s not really a valid comparison.
And According to the IMDB, Friends was created by David Crane and Marta Kaufman, who also wrote the first two episodes and four more in the first season. I’m not sure, but I have my doubts the writing team responsible for the remaining 18 episodes had much to do with “creating” Friends.
I don’t know about Friends, but if it’s like a lot of shows, writers will introduce a “one off character” who is so wildly popular that they become part of the regular cast, and unlike a novel, the act of creating a TV series doesn’t finish until it goes off the air (at least as far as new episodes go).
This is kind of an interesting question from the perspective of copyright law. It seems to me that a finished motion picture is a derivative work of a screenplay. And copyright law gives the exclusive right to create a derivative work to the author of the original work. That means that screenwriters are from a legal perspective, the original authors of the works in question. The dispute is only about the terms under which they will transfer their rights to the producers.
Out of curiousity, what value would you give to these various people in terms of their contribution to the show? What percentage of the creation is made by the writers as opposed to the percentage that the set builders contribute? Referring back to my previous post, do you feel that the key to Shakespeare’s success was that he worked with a really great makeup staff?
In other words, Friends was created by two people who wrote scripts for the show. Yeah, I can certainly see how that invalidates my point.
Again, no it isn’t. As I clearly explained, the idea is based on the premise that the writers are going to lose and get screwed over for the next 20 years, just like they did 20 years ago.
So maybe they might want to consider some form of compromise.
So in other words, you’re saying that without a script, we would still have 60% of a show? I’d like to see an example of that. Can you even, hypothetically, describe what that 60% would look like? Because when I try to imagine a show without a script, what I see are actors standing around not knowing what to do or say (or for that matter, not knowing if they even belong there), and a director standing around not knowing what to tell the actors to do or say, and the set builders standing around not knowing what to build, and the wardrobe people standing around not knowing what costumes to make, etc.
As opposed to, say, a show without set builders. I imagine actors standing on a bare stage, but they still have their dialog and actions, and that’d be at least 95% of the show.
I could watch actors on a bare stage and still enjoy the show. I can’t imagine enjoying watching actors and set builders and wardrobe people standing around not knowing what to do.
I think your internal concept doesn’t quite match reality, based on this and previous posts. You draw a distinction between a book which is an end product and a script which only exists in order to be made into a show, thus the show is the end product. However, there’s more similarity than you appear to think:
Author types up a story, sends a manuscript to a publisher. Publisher buys the manuscript, setting up an agreement for residual payments for the author. Publisher takes the manuscript and turns it into a book that they can sell.
Screenwriter types up a story, sends a screenplay to the studio. Studio buys the screenplay, setting up an agreement for residual payments for the screenwriter. Studio takes the screenplay and turns it into a show or movie that they can sell.
An author is not the only one involved in creating the final version of a book, just as a screenwriter is not the only one involved in creating the final version of a show or movie.
ETA: Also, there are author farms, just as there are writer farms for shows. Yeah, the original creators of Friends didn’t produce anywhere near a majority of the screenplays for the show, but, to use an example I’m familiar with, Ed Greenwood, who designed the Forgotten Realms setting for D&D, isn’t the only writer for Forgotten Realms, either. Wizards of the Coast, who owns the intellectual property, has a stable of writers, and when they want a story written, they call on one and give them an outline of what they want written. That writer produces something meeting their expectations. It works very much like a studio working with multiple writers to create episodes for a series, only it’s in book form.
Exactly. And some people (not me, unfortunately) can simply read a screenplay or a drama and get and enjoy it without even actors or a stage or a director present.