Writers Strike - Why Plumbers Don't Get Residuals
http://johnaugust.com.nyud.net:8080/archives/2007/why-writers-get-residuals My friend Jeff often jokes (half-jokes, I think) that he wishes he got residuals on spreadsheets he made in 2003. He's articulating a familiar frustration: Why should screenwriters get paid extra money years after they finish their work? After all, plumbers don't get residuals. Neither do teachers, secretaries or auto workers. So I want to explain why writers in film and television get residuals, and why they're at the heart of the ongoing WGA strike. xponent Pretty Interesting Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Writers Strike - Why Plumbers Don't Get Residuals
Most people call plumbers to clean out residuals . . . Yucky Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Writers Strike - Why Plumbers Don't Get Residuals
On Nov 18, 2007 8:01 AM, Robert Seeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://johnaugust.com.nyud.net:8080/archives/2007/why-writers-get-residuals My friend Jeff often jokes (half-jokes, I think) that he wishes he got residuals on spreadsheets he made in 2003. He's articulating a familiar frustration: Why should screenwriters get paid extra money years after they finish their work? After all, plumbers don't get residuals. Neither do teachers, secretaries or auto workers. So I want to explain why writers in film and television get residuals, and why they're at the heart of the ongoing WGA strike. I think it is largely because of the uncertainty of success in their industry. Nobody knows how much money a show may make in the future. Even those that don't do well in at first sometimes have legs, as they say, and eventually generate a lot of profit. In other words, it's a choice of how to allocate risk. Writers could ask for more across the board and take no residuals; then the producers would be carrying more of the risk and thus earn more of the reward. But in businesses where a few products do spectacularly well, it is human nature for the top people to take more risk in order to have a shot at the big score (a Silicon Valley expression) if it happens. I'm that way myself -- I have consistently taken less up front in order to have a greater share of possible profits -- less salary and more stock options, for example. The greater the income gap between the top players and everybody else in a given industry, the more of this you'll see, I suspect. People see that the probability of success of any single product is small, so they to own a piece of the success of anything to which they contribute. There's another element to the entertainment industry that has a big impact -- distribution has been controlled by a handful of big companies for many decades now. They've never been very shy about using that power to get what they want. New media distribution channels are eroding their power and at some level, everybody knows it, so distribution of profits is likely to be leveled somewhat in parallel. It will be interesting to see. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Writers Strike - Why Plumbers Don't Get Residuals
On Nov 18, 2007, at 8:01 AM, Robert Seeberger wrote: http://johnaugust.com.nyud.net:8080/archives/2007/why-writers-get- residuals My friend Jeff often jokes (half-jokes, I think) that he wishes he got residuals on spreadsheets he made in 2003. He's articulating a familiar frustration: Why should screenwriters get paid extra money years after they finish their work? After all, plumbers don't get residuals. Neither do teachers, secretaries or auto workers. So I want to explain why writers in film and television get residuals, and why they're at the heart of the ongoing WGA strike. August seems to put a lot of weight on the fact that the writers sell authorship to the studios, including those working in the relatively more stable and relatively more production-line environment of TV writing, saying the same basic machinery applies to adaptations or television shows. Staff writers sign contracts which perform similar legal judo, making their words the company’s words. Turns out that virtually everybody in Silicon Valley signs that same contract: their code is the company's code -- and they don't get royalties on every copy of Powerpoint or every web-hit or every time some kid plays (or even buys) a copy of Need for Speed Pro Street. Those who choose to do work for hire -- including television writers on strike now -- have decided to work on the safer end of the risk-reward continuum. Like those of us who studied writing in college and subsequently sold out to become writers for corporations -- the most sold-out of us as technical writers like I was -- those writers have made a safe choice and will be compensated more meagerly as a result. I don't think that the writers on strike are greedy millionaires, but I do think they are people who made a safe choice but still want the big bucks they'd have been in line for if they'd only taken the big risks. In his argument, August also compares royalties and residuals to stock options. More like being granted stock, not options. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Writers Strike - Why Plumbers Don't Get Residuals
Correction: It was not August, but one of his commenters who compared residuals to stock options. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
