The sorry state of streaming residuals shows why SAG and the WGA are striking.

  • AA5B@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    While I don’t disagree with the general state, I don’t see how it’s Netflix. They didn’t produce or create Suits, nor were the initial broadcaster, so the contracts were set long before Netflix

    • Alex@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      How streaming doesn’t count as broadcasting is a tad too convenient for the studio to not be a deliberate loophole. Even when the language is tested in court the lobbyism favors the deep pockets asking to split hairs clearly in bad faith.

    • cloudy1999@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Ha, I didn’t understand that, but now I do. Thanks. And agreed that the general state is a shame. Writers deserve to be paid.

      • Whirlybird
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        1 year ago

        The average writer salary in the USA is $70k a year. They’re getting paid, they’re just not getting free money for the rest of their life from every job they do. You know who else doesn’t get that? Pretty much every job in the world.

        Do you think the people that made the highways and roads that you drive on every day are getting paid residuals?

    • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is ignoring the history of how writers traditionally got paid. Residuals made it so that the longer the writer was in the game the more they were supported by the raft of their body of work similar to authors. Residuals were originally fought for by another strike ages past so that a writer was paid a little bit every time an episode was aired as a re-run .

      Now re-runs barely exist because of on demand and writers for streaming get paid peanuts. Successful writers have to write like demons and face burning themselves out just to get by. All because the streaming platforms can technically say “it’s not a rerun”. We as a society respect creative IP… Until that creator is on the platform of industry content streaming because a narrow definition of what counts. If it were any other platform like a network it wouldn’t matter who originally contacted it- if you air it a writer gets a share. So Streaming platforms get a massive business advantage over everyone else by screwing over writers.

      YouTubers get paid on a more respectable model for the content they produce on these same principles than industry writers.