Stowell Watters' My Lot "The writers' strike" (Printed Feb. 1, 2008)
The 2007-2008 Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) strike is starting to
annoy me. I want to see these writer’s compensated properly for the
material they create, but that sentiment comes with a warning and
subsequently, some restrictions, because I think the whole issue is
being dealt with rather myopically.
First of all, let’s get matters straight. Twelve-thousand writers from the east and west branches of the WGA, a labor union, are striking against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) trade organization. Under the AMPTP masthead exists American film and television corporations such as Warner Brothers, the Walt Disney Company, Paramount Pictures, NBC Universal, CBS Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment, News Corp/Fox; I could go on. Technically the AMPTP is 397 American producers, but basically it is every national entertainment entity you can think of.
A similar strike in 1988, lasting nearly 22 weeks, cost the American entertainment industry $500 million, which is almost $900 million in current dollars. In its eleventh week this strike has already cost the industry $1 billion (the reason for the difference being, as far as I can see, an increase in the employee base). At a time when you cannot turn on the news without hearing the gloom and impending doom of a possible recession, this figure is a raging tire-fire on the landscape of the American economy.
Every three years the WGA negotiates a new basic contract with the AMPTP, this contract, dare I muddle this editorial with more acronyms, is called the Minimum Basic Agreement (MBA) and details, among other things, residuals writers can receive. The most recent MBA negotiation failed to produce a contract and the WGA cited three major issues that will have to be dealt with before their members will return to work: DVD residuals, jurisdiction in reality and animation and new media.
Streaming Internet videos, downloadable movies and music and the unlicensed wealth of shared media on the Internet make up this amorphous catch-all term ‘new media’. While problems over DVD residuals (writers want more money from DVD sales, double what they get now) and the question of how much writers do for ‘reality’ based television programs and animation are on their list of concerns, the WGA strikers seem to be focusing on this debate over new media more than anything else.
Therein lies an essential problem. These writers want a share of the money their employers receive for the consumer use of new media, but the reality of the situation is even their employers are sketchy with the guidelines, and at the end of the day no one is really sure whose is what on the Internet.
Consumers can pay companies such as iTunes (essentially Apple) or Amazon to download a song or a movie and then access it repeatedly on their computer. This media can also be shared for free with others, albeit illegally. The rock band Metallica and many others spent a lot of time locked in legal battles trying to get strict limitations put on music sharing. You can be caught and severely fined for pirating, but the line blurs when digital property is shared; thus allowing millions of would-be pirates in America to take refuge behind the foggy concept of sharing and new media.
Digital property scraps conventional approaches to the way we think about ownership. For example, the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft, which has a player base of more than nine million people, has developed a thriving dollar-based economy based entirely on digital property. Companies exist to gather lump sums of the game’s gold and sell it – for much more than you would think (on www.Ebay.com 1,000 gold sells for an average of $50). Is the company who made the game, Blizzard Entertainment, entitled to a cut of this real-world profit simply because they created this digital property?
I say no.
The adage goes, if you love something then give it away, and if it comes back to you then it is yours. The Internet changes absolutely everything as it evolves toward a more free-source, free-information system. Artists, while frustrated by declines in record sales, rejoice because they now have a forum in front of the entire world. Your garage band, if it gets enough buzz on Myspace, could be the next Internet phenomenon without costing you a cent. The possibilities of the Internet are just beginning to bloom.
If someone is receiving money for the production of digital property than I believe everyone involved in that production, right down to the writers, should also be. That being said I think this is a moot point.
The problem with striking and demanding money for new media is, once placed into this free-information system, digital property rapidly loses its paper trail. Not only is the entire idea of trying to charge people for shared media tricky, but so is the entire process of fining individuals for their personal media caches.
Because, I think, the Internet is still so new and all of this media is being passed from person to person so rapidly, the world still hasn’t caught up. We are still trying to apply rules to digital property that, while they may work when you purchase a quart of milk at the store, seem outdated. A growing, and seemingly inevitable schism between creation and creator on the Internet allows media to stand alone, where in the past the consumer would have to monetarily acknowledge artists, production companies and nationally syndicated media conglomerates and the like – they now only need click their mouse.
If you think I sound like a pirate you might be right, but you would have to apply that same branding to the majority of the people who use the Internet today. Ownership has taken a backseat to the product, and as the writer’s strike rages on I urge you to consider the changing role of the artist. It is my hope the writers will be able to strike up a more balanced MBA in which all parties receive what they are entitled, but I think this entitlement needs great reconsideration if not a complete overhaul.
— Stowell P. Watters
First of all, let’s get matters straight. Twelve-thousand writers from the east and west branches of the WGA, a labor union, are striking against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) trade organization. Under the AMPTP masthead exists American film and television corporations such as Warner Brothers, the Walt Disney Company, Paramount Pictures, NBC Universal, CBS Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment, News Corp/Fox; I could go on. Technically the AMPTP is 397 American producers, but basically it is every national entertainment entity you can think of.
A similar strike in 1988, lasting nearly 22 weeks, cost the American entertainment industry $500 million, which is almost $900 million in current dollars. In its eleventh week this strike has already cost the industry $1 billion (the reason for the difference being, as far as I can see, an increase in the employee base). At a time when you cannot turn on the news without hearing the gloom and impending doom of a possible recession, this figure is a raging tire-fire on the landscape of the American economy.
Every three years the WGA negotiates a new basic contract with the AMPTP, this contract, dare I muddle this editorial with more acronyms, is called the Minimum Basic Agreement (MBA) and details, among other things, residuals writers can receive. The most recent MBA negotiation failed to produce a contract and the WGA cited three major issues that will have to be dealt with before their members will return to work: DVD residuals, jurisdiction in reality and animation and new media.
Streaming Internet videos, downloadable movies and music and the unlicensed wealth of shared media on the Internet make up this amorphous catch-all term ‘new media’. While problems over DVD residuals (writers want more money from DVD sales, double what they get now) and the question of how much writers do for ‘reality’ based television programs and animation are on their list of concerns, the WGA strikers seem to be focusing on this debate over new media more than anything else.
Therein lies an essential problem. These writers want a share of the money their employers receive for the consumer use of new media, but the reality of the situation is even their employers are sketchy with the guidelines, and at the end of the day no one is really sure whose is what on the Internet.
Consumers can pay companies such as iTunes (essentially Apple) or Amazon to download a song or a movie and then access it repeatedly on their computer. This media can also be shared for free with others, albeit illegally. The rock band Metallica and many others spent a lot of time locked in legal battles trying to get strict limitations put on music sharing. You can be caught and severely fined for pirating, but the line blurs when digital property is shared; thus allowing millions of would-be pirates in America to take refuge behind the foggy concept of sharing and new media.
Digital property scraps conventional approaches to the way we think about ownership. For example, the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft, which has a player base of more than nine million people, has developed a thriving dollar-based economy based entirely on digital property. Companies exist to gather lump sums of the game’s gold and sell it – for much more than you would think (on www.Ebay.com 1,000 gold sells for an average of $50). Is the company who made the game, Blizzard Entertainment, entitled to a cut of this real-world profit simply because they created this digital property?
I say no.
The adage goes, if you love something then give it away, and if it comes back to you then it is yours. The Internet changes absolutely everything as it evolves toward a more free-source, free-information system. Artists, while frustrated by declines in record sales, rejoice because they now have a forum in front of the entire world. Your garage band, if it gets enough buzz on Myspace, could be the next Internet phenomenon without costing you a cent. The possibilities of the Internet are just beginning to bloom.
If someone is receiving money for the production of digital property than I believe everyone involved in that production, right down to the writers, should also be. That being said I think this is a moot point.
The problem with striking and demanding money for new media is, once placed into this free-information system, digital property rapidly loses its paper trail. Not only is the entire idea of trying to charge people for shared media tricky, but so is the entire process of fining individuals for their personal media caches.
Because, I think, the Internet is still so new and all of this media is being passed from person to person so rapidly, the world still hasn’t caught up. We are still trying to apply rules to digital property that, while they may work when you purchase a quart of milk at the store, seem outdated. A growing, and seemingly inevitable schism between creation and creator on the Internet allows media to stand alone, where in the past the consumer would have to monetarily acknowledge artists, production companies and nationally syndicated media conglomerates and the like – they now only need click their mouse.
If you think I sound like a pirate you might be right, but you would have to apply that same branding to the majority of the people who use the Internet today. Ownership has taken a backseat to the product, and as the writer’s strike rages on I urge you to consider the changing role of the artist. It is my hope the writers will be able to strike up a more balanced MBA in which all parties receive what they are entitled, but I think this entitlement needs great reconsideration if not a complete overhaul.
— Stowell P. Watters
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