If you’re free in a few hours (8:00pm, EST), you might want to pop over to Free Press Action Network for an online discussion with some writers, including The Daily Show‘s Jason Ross (you might remember him from this early, viral strike video). From the Free Press Action Network:
Why We’re (Still) Striking
Submitted by Jason Ross on December 6, 2007 – 11:01am.As you’ve probably heard by now, the WGA strike boils down to the issue of residuals for Internet reuse of our material. What’s that mean? Take the show I work for, “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” It gets rerun on Comedy Central four times a day. And each day it reruns, the writers get a modest check. Same with any union-made show or movie. Residuals are what writers get in lieu of a copyright. In principle they’re an acknowledgement of the writer’s centrality to the creative process. In practice they’re a way for writers to survive the inevitable periods of unemployment that haunt people in this industry. (About half of the WGA’s membership is unemployed at any given time.) It’s already tough to make a career out of this job. Without residuals, it would be impossible.
But while each day’s reruns on Comedy Central generate a residual, the rerun that’s available via streaming video on the show’s Website is under a different contract – none. The network pays us zilch for those uses. Perhaps you’ve seen Jon’s face on the iPod billboard. Know how much we get for each $2 iTunes download? The same as we get for streaming. Nada. (And this isn’t Jon’s fault – he supports us 100%.)
Now, if you had to bet on how TV shows will be delivered to viewers five or ten years from now, which would you bank on — traditional TV, or some kind of digital service?
Yeah, that’s our bet, too.
Last Thursday, the studios offered us a buyout for a years’ worth of unlimited streaming reruns. Their price: $250. Our estimate of what that buyout would be worth on regular TV: $20,000.
So we’re still striking.
Head over to submit your question now!
I don’t know how this works or if you’ll find it worthy of pointing out, but there’s a really nice post over at the Huffington Post about how outrageous the AMPTP is, and how unfair the situation is.
This is my favorite bit: “Or imagine if all the tobacco companies got together. What if they hid research about nicotine, and then…oh, wait, they did. And they all got hauled before Congress.”
Shout Out (Hey!):
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