I find this Hollywood writers strike fascinating but puzzling. On the one hand, we have long been told, Hollywood crawls with waiters who serve scripts to movie people with the coffee, lift attendants who type deathless dialog during their lunch hours. On the other hand, Hollywood is grinding to a halt, because the Union, and all those sympathetic to unions, really can withdrawn a great chunk of the raw material essential to the entertainment industry.
Rather than announce the answer to the what’s-going-on? question, I will simply ask it of the Samizdata commentariat. What’s going on?
Is this an industry in decline, having a quarrel about a diminished pie? Or is it a quarrel about new territory (digital rights), in other words a quarrel about an increased pie? Is this TV and the movies on their last legs, or TV and the movies getting the ground rules established for marching profitably forwards into the internet age? Is that actually what the quarrel is about? The studios say: it is a famine out there. The writers say: it is a feast.
My heading says one thing that I do observe with confidence, which is that if you want small screen entertainment, perfectly crafted to fit in with your exact preferences and prejudices, there is still plenty of it out there, which is not going to go away or stop being made any time soon. So, is not this a rather bad time for Hollywood to be strike-bound? Are not the professionals simply handing the future to the blackleg amateurs? Or am I missing something?
I want the strike to last for ever, on politico-philosophical grounds. As a libertarian I am not against strikes in principle. An individual should be allowed to withdraw his labour. So should an organised group of individuals, and attach any conditions they like to ceasing to withdraw that labour, just so long as organised does not mean violent (the alternative to such rules is slavery). Nevertheless, the kind of writers, and the kind of people generally, who like striking, unions, etc., and who believe that striking, unions, etc., is what has made the word rich (rather than productive work), mostly have the kind of opinions I would like to see severely muted, indefinitely.
I could get my wish, at any rate for quite a while:
They want more money for their work when it is used online than Hollywood studios are willing to pay. Because the strike is over matters of principle, not just dollars and cents, it could last for months.
But what are these principles exactly?
Using “principle” and “Hollowood” in the same sentence simply shows your inexperience with Things Hollywood, Brian.
It’s always about money.
The studios have a long and storied existence built on fucking people out of their money, and this is no exception. It’s a replay of the actors’ hassle with the studios when cable TV started airing old movies: the studios got paid a franchise fee to air the movie, but the talent (actors, writers etc) didn’t.
For the actors, it took a commitment by then-president of SAG, Ronald Reagan, to get the studios to pay the talent anything — and even that came at the expense of the early screen actors (in movies made before, I think, 1940, which were not included in the deal — that was the compromise). This is why so many of the older actors died in poverty: they never got the residuals owed to them.
Now it’s a replay of the cable mess: a new medium, online screening, has to be paid for, and the studios have brought out the chisels again. They can’t fuck the actors, so they’re trying to fuck the writers, who are about as close to the bottom of the totem pole as you can imagine.
[Joke: How do you tell the dumbest actress on the set? She’s the one sleeping with the writer.]
All that said, it’s hard to find sympathy with either side: the writers’ union is about as close to the definition of a “closed shop” as you’ll find outside a medieval guild, and Hollywood writers are renowned for stealing ideas (and sometimes whole scripts) from non-union writers.
Shakespeare’s “plague on both your houses” comes to mind, here.
Kim
Of course it’s all about money. I never supposed otherwise. But principles can be ABOUT money, and in this case they surely are. (I think you are confusing principles you don’t like with having no principles.)
What the Economist writer surely had in mind in the quote I quoted was that this strike is about the principles to determine future pay, rather than just handing over chunks of money. (Chunks of money being easier to haggle about, because differences are more easily split.)
If waiters and lift boys were talented writers (and they probably are, at least as far the “talent” of current writers goes) – there would be no strike, as the Studios could find plenty of replacement for the writers.
The studios are prevented from hiring replacements by LAW. The law that protects strikers. The law inflicts violence on the studios protecting “fat cat” unions.
If writers wanted a greater share in whatever, they could negociate those terms in their contracts, or sue studios if former contracts were violated. Instead they revert to violence. They stand on the principle that they’ll get what they wat by violence, which is their “right”.
Unions and strikes don’t protect the poor writers, they protect the fat unionized cats, by excluding the young and new talent, those waiters and lift boys.
Strikes are an act of institutional violence, are sons of the violent ideology of Mrxism.
Got a Youtube video over here that lays out the writer’s side of things.
Cliff’s Notes Version: The writers get a pittance for residuals and when home video came out, made a bad deal. They lose 80% of their pittance to “help a developing technology,” and it’s worked that way for 20 years. They would like that 80% back. Also they get nothing for streaming content because studios can get away with saying “That’s promo material” rather than a broadcast (never mind that the studios run ads in front of the “promotional” material and get revenue from it). Also they make the point that somewhere near 50% of Hollywood writers are unemployed, not writing actively for an ongoing production, at any given time. So most of their money comes from the residuals provided by past work.
I have to say, previously I thought the writers were being pissy and trying to grab a bigger piece of the pie. The more I read about their actual grievances, the more I agree with them.
So, now’s the time to grab more by violence, the usual method ?
If they made a bad deal they can always quit, or re-negociate their contracts. Are there 50% unemplyed among writers ? Then, it’s a sign there are maybe too many of then, and we should let lower wages of the market tell them to look for some other work, not try to inflate wages by violence.
I wasn’t aware of any law barring the studios from hiring non-union writers. Rather, the “law” is enforced by the studios’ being guild signatories. They signed a contract to work with guild talent, so they have to honor it.
Basically, rather than a diminishing pie, think of it as a pie that is in the early stages of switching plates. The studios insist that online video is purely promotional, but they:
A) run the entire film/episode
and
B) collect revenue on those episodes by inserting advertising
What the Guild understands is that, in barely a decade, we could see the entire TV industry work this way, and because technically the shows would be broadcasting online instead of via airwaves/cable, the entire residuals structure is threatened.
That’s where the issues of principle come in. Holding to the principle that the owner of the intellectual property rights of a piece of content, (just like the owner of the distribution rights of the content) deserves a piece of the revenue, this strike is about preserving those rights.
I’m not sure those “rights” are threatened – it’s more a matter of “they signed a shortsighted agreement 20 years ago,” and now they’re trying to get a better one.
It isn’t an ideological dispute – it’s a contract dispute plain and simple. I, frankly, don’t much care who wins. Hopefully whatever happens restructures Hollywood in such a way that we get better scripts, but I’m not holding my breath. For that to happen, writer pay would have to go up and the market become more competitive. But the negotiations in place seem to guarantee that there can be no competition among writers, so there goes that pipe dream…
IP rights? I was under the impression that most work by members of the Writer’s Guild is “work for hire”, which I believe would vest the IP rights in the employing studio.
Jacob: what violence?
Violence first:
American unions have a very violent history (even by the standards of unions – and the first principle of unionism is to keep out non union labour by the threat of violence). Even in the 19th century coal mines were blown up, with the miners in them, for being nonunion.
Even among union people disputes could be violent. For example, when Ronald Reagan was President of the Screen Actors Guild he carried a gun and checked his car for bombs – and it was not management he was concerned about.
Violent disputes between factions in unions (sometimes on poltical grounds – as with Reagan versus the Communists in the late 1940s [the Communists that “liberals” pretend did not exist], sometimes simply because they are loyal to different factions in organized crime) are the history of American unionism.
Hollywood is a de facto closed shop – both for the actors and (although a little bit less) for the writers.
Why do you think Hollywood is, in general, so leftist Brian?
Did you think one of those ordinary-guys-with-good-script had much of chance of ever seeing it made?
“But it will make money” is often NOT a good argument in Hollywood. If only it was “all about the money” (although, in this case, the companies and the union are in dispute about money).
For example, there are tens of millions of Americans who would pay to go to see a pro Christian film – yet they have to be made outside the Studio system (and the distribution system). So “it will make lots of money” is not considered very important.
Ditto certain other types of film – often “principle” (leftist principle) does trump money in Hollywood.
Nor is just films – remember what W.T. Crouch (ex top man at the University of Chicago Press) revealed he had been written by William Miller (representing the big publishing Houses).
Miller told him that of course F.A. Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” would “sell very well” but they had agreed not to publish the reactionary work and he was sure that Crouch would go along – Crouch did not go along and sent the letter to “The Freeman” journal.
Normally “the Spike” (as it is called in American journalism) works quite well.
As for how the union was established in this case – before the 1930’s the union was basically a social club with dreams of power. The New Deal (and the statutes and attitudes that went with it) changed all that.
On contracts:
Sure there are contracts – but they were made under the framework of statutes (pro union statutes). One might as well say that Henry Ford “made a contract” with the U.A.W. (technically he did – although he considered selling the factories rather than making it). It is not quite this bad with the writers – but it is hardly a “free market” either.
By the way – the stage hands are on strike in New York City so the plays are not on.
Hopefully you will not say “but lots of people in New York would love to do these jobs, so why do not the theatres hire them?”
You know why that would be rather problematic (a blow by a blunt instrument on the head tends to be problematic).
Perhaps the best book on the principle of labour unions is W.H. Hutt’s “The Strike Threat System”.
A strike without the threat of violence is a rather weak thing – hence the use of military terms like “picket lines”.
Philosophical discussions are not what take place if someone tries to cross one of these lines to go to work.
Thanks Paul for answering Alisa.
Here is something about the Wagner Act
Usually a strike involves crude violence – as in picket lines, violence unhindered and unpunished by the police, i.e. “protected” violence.
Beside there is legal violence: forcing the workers (some of whom might wish to work) and the management (who might want to hire other workers) – to act against their natural wishes. A strike, in the current form is a violation of human rights, sanctioned by law (i.e. – enforced by state violence).
Yes the forcing “recognition” and “collective bargaining” is wrong in its self.
If an employer want to say “so you have joined a union – you are fired” he should be allowed to do this.
And if an employer wants instead to say “so you have joined a union I AM NOT INTERESTED” he should be allowed to do that to.
Even if most of the people who work for him have joined – forcing “talks” is still forcing something (and therefore violates the non aggresion principle).
Actually I was not replying to Alisa (although Alisa deserved to have her sensible question answered), I was in part replying to Brian, but mostly just thinking aloud (well typing thoughts) which is what I do – unless people hit out with a good mental slap to remind me that I am not the only being in the universe.
Help us! Help us!
Hollywood writers are on strike! What will we do? For the love of God, people, DO SOMETHING!!
Who will fill this hole in my life? What, am I expected to fend for myself? AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Hey, is that a book?
Jacob, my question was regarding this particular strike. I have not seen any reports to that effect, while your last comment seemed to imply that you did.
The rights are threatened in that they have a very real chance of no longer existing in practice due to a silly semantic trick on the part of the studios. It’s as if they stopped paying royalties because the shows started running on fiber optic cable and satellite instead of RF.
As for bad scripts, alas, that is to some extent a result of market forces. As the international market grows and becomes more important, films in the US have to shed American and even Anglospheric idiosyncrasies, usually forcing them down towards a lower common denominator. This is particularly true of comedies, which more and more have to speak the universal language of prat falls and crotch impacts.
Also, as going out to the movies is perceived to be a greater and greater hassle by adults, movies have more aggressively pursued the market that still shows up: Teenagers, and particularly teenage girls. Truly adult fare has become something of a rarity, usually clustered into the current section of the calendar.
There are tremendous economic and entrepreneurial opportunities available in the entertainment industry, if you have the lobes for that sort of thing. For 20 years I have heard people becoming more and more frustrated with the content and quality of the entertainment they can procure on the market … but as far as I know, there are few legal restrictions on who can provide entertainment, so long as it isn’t over the air broadcasting. Or cable.
I was saddened when one of the few shows I can bring myself to watch, Firefly, was canceled. The producer and cast would have preferred to continue making it. It seems that there should have been some way for them to say “Well, we might not make quite as much money, but lets produce it direct to DVD or arrange a way to get paid for “broadcasting” it over the internet. Of course DRM is a dead end, but I would be very happy to pay to get something made that I could enjoy.
Somebody needs to figure it out, and make 50,000 ounces of gold. (They used to say “make a million dollars, but that was when a dollar was worth 1/20th of a zau).
I was saddened when one of the few shows I can bring myself to watch, Firefly, was canceled.
I was watching this for the second time last night. It is a crying shame they never made subsequent series, especially as the script writers did a magnificent job of the characters’ lines.
To answer Brian’s original question, it is about getting a slice of new pies baked from the same ingredients.
Dealing with studios is different from dealing with most other publishers. They are seldom willing to buy limited rights. (Studio lawyers will admit to understanding the concept, off record.) They want the whole thing. That means that when new means of exploitation are discovered the studios get a windfall.
That’s what concerns the writers; they are getting paid the same amount for somethng that gets more valuable by jerks. (Punctuate that how you will.) So from time to time the (very complicated) residuals agreements no longer make economic sense and need to be adjusted. It happens all the time with all sorts of commercial contracts, and is not quite a ‘contract dispute’ as Joshua puts it, becaus it is not about a particualr existing contract but a form of contract. It is a meta-contractual dispute. Because those agreements are complicated they are negotiated collectively, which as Scott Ganz points out suits the studios too.
Jacob is correct when he says, ” If waiters and lift boys were talented writers (and they probably are, at least as far the “talent” of current writers goes) – there would be no strike, as the Studios could find plenty of replacement for the writers,” only if you delete the parenthesis.
Believe me, talented writers are hard to find. On the other hand, everyone in publishing industries works quite hard to keep the millions of untalented ‘writers’ – many of whom are Artists, you understand – off the doorstep. You think security is there to protect stars from stalkers? That’s just a side effect. It is to protect everyone from ‘writers’.
That’s why Hollywood writers are in fact very well paid, and why this ‘strike’ – mostly not signing new contracts – can be effective.
Alisa,
Nowadays strikers don’t have to use actual violence to prevent the studios from hiring replacenemts (no need for picket lines). They have delegeated the dirty work to the state police, under the labor laws.
Same as when state enforced monopolies rob the people by charging high prices.
A strike is, in current circumstances, an act of aggression against individual rights – so at least I see it. It is negociating for money “by different means”.
I didn’t mean actual violence. No incidents of head-bashing have been reported. It’s the writers union after all… they only wield pens, though someone said pens (or words) are more powerful than guns.
Anyhow, the instrument of the strike, invented and justified (nto in my opinion) for helping starving proles, is now (frequently) used by fat-cat unions, to get big money, and keep out the young, poor outsiders that might want to compete in the market.
The NYT says the pie is half eaten…
Jacob: I know what you meant. I was going to ask you why are you so outraged by the government backing “closed shops” with “legal” violence, and not by the same government backing building regulations with the same kind of violence, but I thought better of it:-|
If I lose Family Guy because of this strike, I’m going to be sore about it.
Rich/Tim,
I know where Firefly went. You can’t have heroes and protagonists running around saying things like “I aim to misbehave.” People might get the wrong idea.
I mean, they can do that on South Park. It’s animated. For all anyone knows, it’s a children’s show. But real people acting like that? Not to be tolerated at all.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/11/business/strike.php
“As it turns out, the pot of money that the producers and writers are fighting over may have already been pocketed by the entertainment industry’s biggest talent.”
Interesting article about how the movie industry in doling out “participations” i.e. pieces of the gross revenue to the top talent and directors (as much as 25% plus of the revenues) may not be able to give out anymore to writers unless the producers change the way they do business.
As I understand it the writers feel that they should be getting a bigger slice of the new methods of distribution – mostly legit online downloading etc. The studios/distributors have made such a big deal about how great it is (and will be) and the writers haven’t seen any change in their money. Now the studios/distributors are saying that the pie isn’t fully baked just yet so there is nothing to give out. They’ve been trumpeting the FUTURE of such methods of distribution to keep the bandwagon playing. They claim not to have made much.
__________________________
When the government enforces the “rights” of collective bargaining by threatening companies who use replacements, violence exists. I suppose the government, who is called upon to support property holders’ rights from theft and abuse, may then decide that too much advantage skews to the property holder and they must then counterbalance the effect. So we have a government that stops fully honoring property rights and contracts and endeavors to the one stop shop for the distribution of violence, a little for both sides. That’s how they become the de facto “owner” of the means of production. Both (or all) sides owe something to the Master. We now have Big Industry and Big Labor both as tendrils of the true master. The consumer can just go suck a lemon.
May I answer anyhow ? I promise to make it short.
I believe that some building regulations are needed to regulate the conflicts of interests that may arise between owners of neighboring properties. Not all regulations now existing make sense, but some of them do. What you do on your plot affects my plot, and some delimiters need to be defined.
I’ll stop here, as I’m off topic.
Jacob, I forgot to link this thread under “building regulations”. My point is that you are being inconsistent. Having made that point, i’ll stop here too, especially as it is me who began the OT line.
It is not in the interests of a builder to kill his customers (it leads to a bad reputation).
Of course the, unofficial, excuse for building regulations is “well it stops law suits” – accept that it does not.
A builder may obey all the regulations and yet still get sued – indeed even if the regulations forced him to build in a stupid way, this is not an automatic defence in American courts.
As for zoning (planning controls), property rights evolved in ways over time to solve the very problem that zoning is, falsely, claimed to solve.
I was told that “without planning controls a strip club might open up right next to a church”.
Recently a strip club (or whatever these places are called these days) has opened up right next to a church in Kettering – the church at the bottom of Gold Street.
And “planning” was of no use in stopping this development (the old ways of private ownership and covenants would have served the church rather better).
It should also be remembered that all of the horrors complained about in such books as the “Sack of Bath” or Roger Scruton’s “England: A Eulogy” happend AFTER the planning statutes were passed.
The other day, walking through parts of the town that were built in Victorian times as cheap working class housing, I thought of the socialist propaganda book “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists”. According to this work cost cutting builders operating in the late 1890’s and early 1900’s were putting up defective houses that would soon fall down.
Well it has been more than a century and they are still sound as a bell – unlike a lot of the stuff the “planners” had built. Yet a bet this book is still on university reading lists as a “great work”.
Britain was a much poorer country a century ago (due to technology, and thus capital, being greatly inferior to today – although we are living off past capital, in a diferent sense, now), but many of things said in the “great works” have turned out to be false.
Some good things about the strike.
It is now clear that people like Mr Letterman, Mr Colbert (spelling), and “John Stewart” do not make up their own leftist news and politics jokes (of course Jay Leno is also off the air – but his show is not so wildly one sided).
They “will not cross a picket line” – but it turns out that they would have little to say if they did.
I also hear that CBS news writers are considering going out on strike.
Nice to have it admitted that the network news (not just the late night shows) is fiction.
Come on brothers and sisters – comrades in CBS, NBC, MSNBC and CNN, come out on strike.
And stay out – for ever.
They also can allow themselves to strike because there is no competition in their business from Chinese or Indian writers… Though I’m not so sure about the Indians.
That’s not as funny as you might have thought. TV has this habit of getting breakout shows from the strangest places, which BTW are completely independent of the Hollywood/NYC entertainment establishment.
Take South Park. In 1996, it was crude construction-paper animation and nobody knew it was coming. No professional writers either. Rather, it was created by two film students in Boulder, Colorado, making fun of the area where they grew up.[1]
By 1999, it was one of the most talked-about shows on TV and possibly one of the most-watched shows on cable.
And all because two smartasses in Boulder decided to do their own thing.
If an Indian writer comes up with a show concept that can actually work outside of his own cultural context (and it isn’t taken for re-write by a bunch of self-involved New Yawkers who re-write the show to be about over-educated and under-employed people in Manhattan like every other damn sitcom in the US) that would probably be huge.
[1] “South Park” is a very real place. Roughly half of the recurring characters are real people or composites of real people. And occurrences in that place are sometimes just a touch absurd.
One of my comments has not appeared – the one where I (for example) examined Rich Paul’s comment, and told the story of what happened to “Firefly”.