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

  • @cloudy1999
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    10 months ago

    Gross. Writers should be paid fairly.*

    Edit: Previously read “Shame on Neflix”. See thoughtful reply below.

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months 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
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        2510 months 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
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        1110 months 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.

        • @[email protected]
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          210 months 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?

      • @[email protected]
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        310 months 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.

    • @[email protected]
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      -110 months ago

      You’re acting like they weren’t paid fairly to do their actual job, which was to write the scripts for the show in the first place.

      They don’t work on residuals. They get paid an agreed amount like every other job. According to the US Bureau of Labor statistics the average writer salary is USD$70k. That’s salary, not residuals. They are paid on average $70k to do their job. Is that not a fair average wage?

      The protesters and people like you are acting like the entire writing staff only got paid $3000 to write the show.