welcome to life.

http://web.mac.com/ziboskwitz/iWeb/C...2E383EF75.html

the strike explained in this short video clip

I've been hearing a rather interesting rumor going around town that the WGA is negotiating with Sergey Brin and GOOGLE about establishing a residual pay-rate for writers on the upcoming GOOGLE TV which could easily serve as a model for (and force the hand of) the AMPTP's future dealings with writers in New Media.

Like I said, it's a rumor...but a very interesting one.

I've been on an unintentional strike for a few years... Doubt anyone is going to pay up though...

I heard this strike may last up to 5 months :(

Ronald D. Moore on NBC: They Weren't Going to Pay Us

November 8, 2007 in Labor, Television

It seems like the popular thing to do now. Go out to the picket lines and score quick interviews and quotes from showrunners on everything that's been pissing them off lately. Well, Ron Moore is plenty pissed off at NBC and it's easy to understand why. I've written on this subject before and had my reporting linked from the WGA website and quoted in a trade labor magazine, because I think this is important and because I knew it was a pretense to the struggles going on right now over digital media.

NBC wanted Ron Moore and company to create a series of webisodes - basically two-minute shorts that step outside the main thrust of a TV show - to broadcast on the web only, sourced from the Battlestar Galactica franchise to wet viewers appetites between the second and third season. Moore had his guys start writing and producing them and then found out NBC had no intent of paying for the material at all. Not a dime, not for anybody involved.

Moore halted all work on the webisode production until an agreement on payment could be made, causing NBC to seize the material immediately which they then pushed out onto the web as planned. NBC also filed a complaint against the Writers Guild of America claiming they were illegally interfering with their contract with the shows producers and writers (the one that requires they be paid for writing.) Intimidation, essentially, is what they said the WGA was doing to Moore and company.

Well, without going into it any further, I'll tell you that NBC lost the original ruling and an appeal, and they lost it by a mile. Moore never really spoke out on the matter, but he told someone at Entertainment Weekly while he was walking the picket lines precisely what went down and why this strike is all about things like webisodes.

At Battlestar, we had a very specific situation last year, dealing with webisodes, which opened my eyes to the problems. When we were approached to do Galactica webisodes, the studio's position was they didn't want to pay anyone to do it—they considered it promotional material. They weren't going to pay any of the writers or the actors or the directors to do it, which we thought was crazy. We refused to do it, and eventually came to an accommodation where they said they would pay us, but then when we were almost done, they decided they weren't going to credit anybody. They weren't going to acknowledge anybody who wrote it. And then I refused to deliver the webisodes, and they came and took them anyway, which is their right since they own the show...but it really made me aware of these issues. I mean, my staff writer, who is the lowest man on the totem pole, they want him to do all this work for another media, not pay him for it, and then make money off of his work. Ultimately, that's why we're here, because that's just wrong.

Imagining what it would be like to fight over residuals when you don't have such a thing in your job can be a tough sell, but this is something I think anybody can understand. This is a "duh" moment if there ever was one. As Mal says, "I do the job. Then I get paid."

Damn skippy.

http://www.mediapundit.net/2007/11/r...to-pay-us.html

I found this in a bulletin from Robert Ben Garrant's (Travis on Reno 911) MySpace page. Just thought I'd post it.

My name is Robert Ben Garant. I am a screenwriter. You might just know me as Travis Junior, the guy who gets hurt a lot on Reno 911!. But I also write Reno 911!, and I have written a few movies.

The WGA (Writers Guild of America) is my union.

There is a lot of misinformation out there about the Writers' Strike. This is no coincidence. The corporations who run the news (NEWSCORP, VIACOM, etc.) are the very people we are striking against.

I wanted to set a few things straight:

WHAT WE ARE ASKING FOR: Our contract with the studios is up. The old contract gives us 4 cents per every DVD sold. The studios make about 17 bucks profit per DVD. We get 4 cents. We were asking for 8 cents per DVD. (For the record, the Chinese companies that package DVDs get about 60 cents per DVD.)

We are also asking for -- and this is the big one -- the same cut for every movie and TV show that you download off the Internet.

The studios have told us that they will not give us that. The studios want to keep the DVD rate at 4 cents, and give us NOTHING for every time you watch a movie off the Internet.

I think we all know, within a few years, people will download movies more than they buy DVDs, maybe more than they watch reruns on TV. I know I do. I watched Lost off iTunes. They cost $1.99 per episode then they have commercials anyway.

The studios say they don't know how much money they're making off the Internet, so they can't pay us. Poppycock. They're making $1.99 per show, plus what they get from the advertisers.

I want to set the record straight on some other stuff, too:

MISINFORMATION: "Most Hollywood writers make 200 grand a year." Poppycock. Most writers are middle class. There are about 40 writers who make that kind of money. The union has 12,000 other members, who don't make anywhere near that.

A friend of mine is a staff writer for a very big late night talk show. He has enough money saved up to last about two months. He will have to sell his house, if the strike goes on longer than that. His house is not a mansion. It is a one-bedroom in Burbank.

MISINFORMATION: "The writers wanted this strike. They're causing all this economic hardship in LA." Poppycock. No writer wanted this strike. We want to work. But the studios ARE NOT EVEN NEGOTIATING WITH US. THEY WON'T EVEN TALK TO US.

The Studios told the WGA that they would NOT EVEN NEGOTIATE until we stopped asking for 8 cents on every DVD.

So, on the Sunday before the strike, the WGA stopped asking for 8 cents. We took that off the table, and went back down to 4 cents per DVD. THE STUDIOS STILL REFUSE TO TALK TO US.

They won't even negotiate until we accept their offer for the Internet. Their offer for the Internet is: NOTHING. No money at all.

My union wants to work, but we would be CRAZY to accept a contract that says THEY GET TO USE OUR WORK FOR FREE ON THE INTERNET. The Internet is the future.

Screenwriters and TV writers live on residuals. We are not on salary. We are all self-employed. Our only insurance comes from the union. If our union is finished, so are we.

We live from job to job. It is the residuals that get writers through from job to job.

I have heard people say things like: "Well, I make staplers, I don't get paid every time someone staples something."

That is true. But you don't make ONE stapler, sell it, then -- after people staple with it for a while -- and IF people like it, they call you in, interview you, and maybe hire you to make another stapler.

And the next stapler you make can't be like the last stapler you made at all.

That is what writing is like.

Successful shows make TONS of money -- millions on millions -- for the networks. And the writer, who created this successful money machine, gets a tiny piece, ever time a show airs. (I have never gotten one of those for "Reno." "Reno" is non-union.)

Back in the Golden Age of TV, the guys who wrote "I Love Lucy" got paid a fee to write it, then they never got a residual. For 50 years, the networks made MILLIONS off of those "Lucy" episodes, and the writer never got another penny. We can't go back to that. And that is what the studios want us to do.

Now, I'm not crying poverty. Since I left Farragut in 1988, I have been really lucky, going from cable to features, and back and forth. Most writers get about one writing job a year -- no matter how good they are.

This Union, like all Unions, is here to protect the little guys from being crushed by the mega-corporations.

The Studios want 100% of the pie -- and that is not fair. The fat cats on the top, the Rupert Murdocks and the Sumner Redstones are making more money than they ever have.

We're fighting for everybody: writers, actors, directors (because they will get stuck with this deal, if we cave in.) And we're fighting for all writers in the future.

That is why I am striking. We are striking for our future.

Thanks, everybody, for listening to my side of this.

And you all should know, this strike might go on for quite a while. The studios aren't even talking to us yet. Oh, and people ask me: WHAT CAN I DO TO SUPPORT THE WRITERS.

Simple: Don't download movies or TV. I'm not. ... and I still haven't seen season 6 of The Sopranos yet.

Robert Ben Garant, Reno S.D., WGA.

Blah blah blah blah...

What a load of shit.

Why anybody would want to be associated with any kind of claustrophobic writers guild or union in beyond me.

Make independent films, don't be bound by the same equilibrium that strangles a system producing mostly trendy, intellectually vacant academic celluloid in the first place.

Shoot all the striking 'writers', and give their orphaned kids' food to tramps on the street as well.

Then maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to reset and see more films ground out from raw inspiration and passion instead of the diluted Hollywood sperm spouted freely from the shafts of fatcat market-watchers.

Placard waving khuntz.

http://www.selkirkshire.demon.co.uk/...colourbars.jpg

:eek: Rod is one of them.

Rod isn't apart of the guild....