Whether your entertainment tastes run toward Saw IV or The Girl With the Pearl Necklace… or was that earring?… movies or TV, late-night talkers or early-morning gab fests, there could soon be a whole lot less entertainment going on if last-minute negotiations between Hollywood producers and the Writers Guild of America fail to produce a compromise deal.
The stakes are large.
On the one hand, writers are the lifeblood of ideas that flows through the Hollywood circulatory system, yet the in-force deal with Hollywood cuts them out of a share in DVD, wireless and Internet sales produced as a result of their efforts. There is a reasonable case to be made that they should have their fair share.
The question at stake is, how much?
After a previous negotiation failed to produce the desired results several years ago, WGA members feel they are owed a larger portion to make up for all the extra royalties they’ve missed out on as DVD, wireless and Internet distribution has boomed, enriching producers.
Producers, naturally, want to give up as little as possible - preferably, nothing.
By standing too firm, neither side will gain. As work slows and ultimately grinds to a halt, competition from unscripted reality programming, videogames, music, Internet and other forms of entertainment threaten to gain ground against an already-dwindling TV and movie-going audience. Hit shows now boast ratings that, even 10 years ago, would have made them cancellation fodder. The question producers must ask is whether they can afford to allow a long work stoppage to give consumers an extended period to discover and become distracted by other forms of entertainment.
Writers, however, must be careful not to overreach; while they certainly must be entitled to a fair share of the profits from such new revenue streams, they must remain realistic in how large that “fair share” might be.
My estimation is that a livable deal will give writers a standardized royalty for such new revenues streams that are in line with current royalty rates from other, existing revenue streams. And producers must face the fact that they can’t hog all the profit pie to themselves, when what they are profiting on is the intellectual property of others.
It’s a lesson as simple as kindergarten: if you’re going to bring cookies to class, bring enough so that everyone can have some.
