The sorry state of streaming residuals shows why SAG and the WGA are striking.
As someone who works in the film and TV industry, let me go ahead and say whatever you do in America, whatever industry: you’re undervalued, underpaid, and your wealthy executives are getting fat on your hard work while you starve.
You spelled capitalism wrong. Social market economy makes it a bit better - but yeah earnings through work and capital gains are extremely off balance right now.
As someone in America I’m not undervalued, underpaid, or starving. Maybe you should stick to speaking for your own industry.
“I’m not struggling so therefore no one else is struggling”
Are you for fucking real?
That’s exactly the myopic thinking that put us in this situation, so you shouldn’t be surprised to find this person.
The thing is, he doesnt necessarily earn a decent wage…thats the real kicker.
Read the first comment though… it suggested that literally everyone is struggling
It’s fucking hyperbole. Obviously not literally everyone is underpaid (such as but not limited to CEOs). Like, if ya make a comment like what I responded to it comes off as a snarky and you will get shit on for it.
Ok but you attacked someone for saying that they personally aren’t suffering, even though they weren’t suggesting they speak for everyone either… unlike the other comment
I only said people are starving because some are, and it’s avoidable. But everyone in America is grossly underpaid compared to executive pay and corporate wealth.
“Um actually 🤓 ☝️”
Have some sense to not post something like this when you are aware of the plight of the average worker in America even if you are in the minority as a tech worker
(I’m also a tech worker)
Honestly even tech workers are not paid enough relative to executives. Shit is crazy out here.
And then lawyers be making like $1mil a year.
Engineer here - we’re undervalued too. We just happen to have more clout in the workplace at the moment, and so more individual bargaining power. That can change on a dime, though.
It’s also just relative scaling. A Starbucks barista might make $40k/year while its CEO Laxman Narasimhan makes $15M/year. Meanwhile, a Google engineer might make $400k/year, but its CEO Sundar Pichai makes $225M/year. So while an engineer will earn way more than a barista, as a fraction of CEO pay, engineers often actually make less. Both are symptoms of worker exploitation. It just so happens that technology companies tend to make a lot more money than coffee companies.
If that changes I’ll figure out the new way. Wouldn’t be the first time, don’t figure it’s gonna be the last.
What do you mean by the new way?
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I don’t really have issues there, either. I actually get in hot water if I don’t take at least 6 weeks of PTO a year, and the maximum is unlimited so long as my work gets done.
Yeah right. Everything you’ve been saying has been absolute bullshit, elscallr.
And here we have the typical “Fuck you, I got mine” attitude. How lovely.
Bootlicker confirmed
Found the CEO…
If your CEO has money, you’re probably undervalued and underpaid. It’s how the incentive structure works.
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Hahaha, 😅 uhh you most certainly are, buddy! Hate to burst your bubble and bring you back down to reality… I know you hate it when we take the binkiboot out of your mouth to let your breath for a second, but you got to give it up eventually… you’re too old for that now…
Keep licking that boot.
I don’t have to, I can afford my own
Found the executive
Better they uploaded it on torrent and asked for donations
I’m a former musician and record label employee who’s been screaming “told you so” for years.
I hope the writers get what they’re owed, but don’t hold your fucking breath
I don’t understand how streaming isn’t just considered syndication. It seems like a dictionary definition of what it was, even if it didn’t exist when syndication agreements were made.
It’s a rerun of a show on a separate channel/platform. And the writers/actors should get the agreed revenue for it the same as if it were on TMC, nick at night or Netflix b
Indeed. an impartial judge wouldn’t let studios split hairs over words like this but as long as they’re appointed by politicians, they will side with whoever has the deeper pockets, because that’s what’s required for a continuing bright career.
I don’t get any money from the systems I setup at work as an IT worker years ago, even if they are used every day in perpetuity and make the company billions.
Where’s my income in perpetuity for creative problem solving?
It should be in your bank account instead of the pockets of investors that do 0 work and generate 0 value
Exactly. That person should unionize themselves and get that money back instead of complain that others might have a living wage.
If investors do 0 work and generate 0 value, why are they included at all?
Writers and actors should cut out investors and make their content independently. If they need money, they could borrow some under the condition that they share the profits if their content makes money. Wait a second…
Sounds an awful lot like Nebula.
It’s almost like there are multiple independent streaming services doing just this but without the vc money!
Ok… but then why would they pay to have it done in the first place?
I’ve solved issues that have saved transit riders hundreds of thousands of hours of time… but so have other people. I don’t know how such an accounting of the return for investment I made would work.
When my solutions stop working as well, due to misc design/need drift, how do we decide how much I lose and the next me gets?.
They wouldn’t, that’s the problem
This just in: different payment structures are different. Different valuation of output is different. Unfair under-valuations are unfair. What a discovery.
You typed 3 sentences to say exactly nothing.
Yeah, but think of the calories burned!
Did you not get paid hourly or salary for the work? Your compensation package was different. Did you not have a steady job? Did you not know you were going in there next week?
I think the latent question here is - how were expectations and/or contracts for writers any different from hourly workers who have never expected royalties?
The previous comment did most of the work for you. Writers, actors, crew, and generally everyone involved in the entertainment industry does not have a salary gig like office workers. They aren’t working consistently–which has only gotten worse in the streaming era–and thus rely on royalties as part of their total compensation.
So, in summary, they are completely different situations that cannot be directly compared.
There are freelance/gig workers in other industries. Programming has had a massive freelance market for ages. It’s practically unheard of for them to receive royalties, so it seems like you don’t need to rely on royalties.
And writers do have a salary gig in the vast majority of cases. It’s just usually not a long term position. They are hired for the duration of the project, and then need to find something new.
That’s not unique to writers or Hollywood at all. Many people are hired for the duration of a project, including managers, engineers, construction workers and so on. None of them receive royalties.
Maybe you should join a union about it
Did you take your job at a rate of pay based on getting paid residuals in perpetuity?
This is like you taking a contract where they continue to pay you a licence fee for each server that they use your product on, then they move the product to a cloud system so they can get the output of 100 servers with only a single server licence.
Wait writers normally get royalties for their work? What the fuck that’s amazing, so Netflix is just in violation of a contract then? Why doesn’t the WGA just sue them?
If they have a contract to receive payment perpetually why are they striking instead of litigating?
Because the contract probably pays differently depending on the broadcast method and didn’t take streaming into account
I have the same stance. Just because I designed a product, I don’t get a percentage of each product sold.
Because if we did that for everyone who were responsible for it, it’d skyrocket the said products price.
Fight for a better contract instead of bitching on the internet about other people who have the balls to do it.
Honestly.
I don’t understand why people are so up in arms around artists and the entertainment industry. Flat payment is commonplace in most industries. These people agreed to the payment they were given.
You basically agree to it with a knife in your back because it is the only deal available and they’re using the money and power against your desire to be heard or seen.
Welcome to the world of minimum wage service jobs for something like 30% of the population.
And now they’re out here trying to get a better agreement as is their right, and you’re bitching about it.
Why are you so upset that writers are trying to get a living wage?
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When are people going to understand that what you know, what you can do, value, truth, integrity and love have absolutely nothing to do with how much you get paid? The world makes much more sense if you stop assuming being a good person makes you rich. The opposite is true, being a psychopath is far more profitable.
If we placed the appropriate value on the people who reduced suffering the most, there would be statues of Edward Jenner everywhere and he would have been the richest person in the world.
There is an inverse relation between the wage a job pays and the contribution to society that the job makes, with a few exceptions like doctors. The highest paying jobs are very often parasites on society. This seems to originate from the Calvinist work ethic where meaningful work is its own reward.
~ paraphrased from David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs
with a few exceptions like doctors
Even then… Elective plastic surgeons make far more than virologists or ER techs. Radiologists can earn more by owning an MRI machine and charging for its use than by billing to interpret the machine’s results. Hospital administrators at big clinics earn more than staff physicians. Insurance company admins can earn more than doctors. Shareholders in medical firms earn most of all.
The fact that I had to look up who Edward Jenner was, and that I (unfortunately) immediately know who Kylie or Bruce Jenner is (to use the same last name), cynically proves your point.
Nurses and firemen should drive lambos, bankers should eat scraps. But alas, human nature rewards greed, but expects humanity.
You should support the actor’s and writer’s strike. That’s what I’ll keep bringing up here, do what you can to make things change.
I have been supporting it. I haven’t starred in a single Holywood movie since it began and I haven’t written shit.
That won’t not a permanent option for some of us now, right?
Do what you can, that’s all any of us can hope for.
What can we do? I don’t live by anywhere they are striking.
It’s small, but just talking about it and send a message of support on social media is appreciated.
Maybe they’ll even actually see it.
There’s a donation fund to help the strike continue. The writers aren’t calling for a boycott yet.
https://mashable.com/article/how-to-support-wga-writer-strike
I definitely will donate, thank you friend :)
refuse to watch, read, play, or otherwise engage with anything created by an AI… we just make it a fundamental demand… we don’t want any of that shit…
Donate to the entertainment community fund
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Actually boycotting ironically hurts in this situation.
Writers and actors are encouraging people to keep watching and taking about shows & movies because that underscores the value they bring and are trying to get recognition for, ultimately bolstering their case.
Keep watching anything and everything folks!
Gross. Shame on Netflix.
“It’s Free Money” ~ Studio Executives
What a weird measure of time for a show. It’s not a song. Why not use something more suitable, like views?
Edit: it’s 50 million hours. If each episode is about an hour long, then that’s about 50 million views. If there are 10 episodes per season, then that’s 5 million viewers per season.
It’s semantics, but the equivalent for a song would be plays. I think the problem with using views or plays for a metric like this is that they don’t account for people that take in the entire piece of media. It considers people that accidentally click an episode and then close it after some seconds, and people who watch an episode from start to finish, to be the same. One of those people are going to see a lot more ads than the other, thus making the company more money. Just my hypothesis tho.
If all content (all content) was paid for by tax dollars, it would not only be ad free, but there wouldn’t be huge companies standing in-between the artist and the consumer as far as getting the artists paid. And it wouldn’t cost that much. Like less than what you pay for having all streaming services simultaneously.
Lol. Lmao even. Have you never heard what happens to government funded research papers?
tell me you didn’t watch the video without telling me you didn’t watch the video
Government funded art has a tendency of being loyal to their patrons, i.e. the government, which stifles the very essence of the art itself. All content is not for every body, due to taste, and interest. You’re also talking about doing away with advertising, hahahahahahahaha.
You are talking to yourself.
Jesus Christ, if my tax dollars were going to the absolute garbage content that’s being currently produced I would personally run for office to repeal that legislation.
And if the quality is so low when billions are on the line, I am terrified of what we would get when it’s government funded. Even now, you don’t need to look far to see how poorly our taxes are spent. Look into how construction companies take advantage of government contacts.
Then why aren’t you running?
Sounds like you oppose PBS? no? Or the taxes the FCC pays to media corps that come out of your paycheck?
When can I expect you to announce you candidacy?
Go run, big boy. See how many people agree with your ideology. I dare ya.
Everyone’s paid shit these days it seems. I feel like teachers/healthcare workers/IT people need more raises too. Idk why we’re so focused on just writers…plenty more important people out there getting shit pay… especially teachers in America who have to deal with so much bullshit.
Solidarity, a rising tide floats all boats. The enemy is not at your side.
The writers are on strike at the moment. It’s really weird that you don’t think that’s of interest.
Because I put things in tiers of importance in my head and theres jobs that rank wayyyyy above writers that need our rally cry way more in my opinion.
De-valuaing others de-values yourself. Divided we beg for pittances from employers and the owners.
You know what you’re right. Thanks for the insight. I apologize for that comment.
I forgive you. I also appreciate your sense of self-reflection.
I’m watching suits right now… On Netflix.
I’d heard that the Duchess of Sussex used to be an actress, but I’d never seen her in anything. It was a little strange at first to see her playing a paralegal.
For me it was a little strange seeing an unknown actress playing a paralegal become some popular public figure in the UK.
You mean c-tier acres Meghan Markle?
Me too, as I type this. Getting to the end of season 3 for the first time!
Then you’re a part of the problem. Supporting billionaire corporations making stockholders richer.
Hollywood writing is terrible. They can strike - noone cares
and no royalties? $3000, would be few, even for only one professional writer.
Assuming the current all you can watch flat fee model is unsustainable, how do you think a model like videogame (Steam, Epic, etc…) would be perceived? Lower monthly sub. Originals are included. Wanna watch something else? You can watch 2 episodes to start. If you wanna continue buy the season. Sort of like videogames where there are demos.
IP Laws need to change: Melancholy Elephants is a great Hugo Award winning short story about this train of thought.
Now do musicians!
You can do any profession on which a company make long term profits on employees’ or freelances’ work. Such as science, programming, business development, etc. Amount of residuals paid is zero ($0.- gross).
Media company want to treat writers and actors as any freelance. The issue is that freelances and employees deserve residuals as actors and writers, but it won’t happen. It is easier to remove existing benefits labeling them as “privileges”, than give more benefits to all
