The Writers Guild of America is on strike. Most of us who watch TV already know, or will know soon.
The most easily identifiable point of contention is the "DVD Royalty" issue. As Lucas points out in his blog, and has been reported widely, the 4-cents per DVD royalty the writers receive is tiny, and one proposal was to increase it to 8-cents. Sounds like the writers would be willing to give up that proposal (though I wish they wouldn't) if other concessions can be obtained from the studios.
Among them should be wording about royalties no matter how the material is provided to consumers. Why? Because technology is moving faster than any long-term contract can anticipate. No contract that lists only specific technologies will be relevant in 10 years.
For a few years now, industry has been perfecting a technology that will allow the contents of over 30 DVDs to fit onto a thin "chip" that is no larger than a postage stamp. As with all technologies, it could take years to get cheap, or a breakthrough could cause it to be in Wal-Mart in time for Christmas 2008. Similarly, no one used to think we'd be able to stream video content into homes with sufficient quality to rival DVDs, but today it's not only available, it's likely our home computer networks will be able to handle it.
Put those two technologies together and there may be no reason to buy DVDs in the future. We'll be able to download and store libraries of TV shows in something the size of a book, rather than in the bookcases we use today.
If that's coming, then the "per DVD" royalty rate will fade in importance. The artists who create the stories we love need to find a way to get their well-earned compensation no matter how the consumer gets access to them.
If this strike goes on a long time, it will be because of the complexity of the issues (legal and technological) and how that complexity makes it hard for the studios to estimate the effect of any contract on their profit margins.
1 comment:
The size of a postage stamp? Sounds like an SD chip.
You're right, the DVD technology (including HD DVD and Bluray) is already obsolete. Downloads are the future. Prior to that will be television sets with built in computers capable of downloading or streaming video on demand. I think the on-demand option will come first (though with Vongo and Netflix it's already a reality) because the accounting will be easier. Then it will only be a matter of time before software is available to capture the download for storage. But .04 per DVD for writers? It just goes to show you how big a cut the middle man takes, huh?
Post a Comment