Ezra approvingly cites Atrios saying:
I'm always surprised how many people fail to be sympathetic to striking workers simply because they perceive them to be "well-paid." Certainly one can always find a more worthy cause, a more desperate case, someone more "deserving." But ultimately this is about whether management gets to screw workers, and that's something we can all be concerned about whether it's janitors, Hollywood writers, or even millionaire baseball players.The main issues for the WGA are rather simple - when the studios repackage their work until the end of time in new and exciting media formats, how much residuals should they get (if any). If you fail to "sympathize" with striking writers, you think that management should just expropriate the value of their work forever. In other words, you sympathize with management.
This is rather a creative use of the word "expropriation". The writers have a contract. They are selling a product--the right to their work--to the studios. The writers would like to sell this product on more generous terms; the studios would like to buy it on less generous terms. If either party is dissatisfied with the terms, it can refuse to enter the transaction. No one is stealing from anyone else, except in the sense that the shopowner I purchased eyeglasses from yesterday "expropriated" several hundred dollars from me, when I would much rather have had the eyeglasses for free.
I don't have a dog in this fight; I think both the companies and the writers are entitled to negotiate as hard as they like. I'm betting on the writers, though. How many more reality television programs and Law and Order reruns can America consume?
I'm also upping my Netflix subscription. Luckily, I haven't even started Lost or Babylon 5 . . .
nerd alert - I loved babylon 5...took awhile to get into, but it was fun while it lasted
>The writers have a contract.
No, they don't. Their contract expired last week.
This is typical libertarian business-fandom nonsense: the whole basis of the dispute is that property rights were undefined, and people got pissed-off, as is typical in such situations. Just because business people are involved does not mean that events occurred in a universe of infinite nozickian justice.
http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-strike-ii.html
I love this entry. It explains it so well.
Atrios does have a point, though: however fat the striking cats, they're usually striking against even fatter cats in management (although not necessarily among the shareholders). Since this sort of contract is usually more or less zero-sum, you kinda have to pick a side.
Or, you could just not care, as I do.
The key to the quoted sentiment can be found by carefully parsing this sentence:
I'm always surprised how many people fail to be sympathetic to striking workers simply because they perceive them to be "well-paid."
Note the ideological linchpin here is "striking workers" (and that vague whiff of Eau de Marx is probably not coincidental). If you don't buy into the paradigm that the striking worker is an exalted thing, then the rest of that statement goes to pieces, the same way Atrios or Klein would sniff at a successful businessman who laments that his favorite chardonnay was just mentioned in last month's Wine Spectator, and has consequently increased by another $50/bottle.
Joe Average American is neither in a unionized trade or industry nor would benefit from a union structure in his trade or industry. So he comes home from a day of doing whatever needs to be done to pay bills, including the $50/month entertainment purchase that feeds new content to his television, flips on said set to relax after putting in his day's work, and discovers nothing but reruns, substitutes, and (un)reality shows because a group of people who get paid to do what they love and hang out with the beautiful people, are now holding out for more money.
This is supposed to elicit sympathy?
No doubt the job of a script writer has its difficulties, and I don't blame the WGA members for wanting to defend their end of the deal -- and welcome them to fire off as many barrels as they can afford to reload. But in real life, the doing of the fun things is rarely easy, and their plight doesn't exactly tug at my heartstrings. I've done jobs that were very menial and well well below my skillset and training (and certainly well below my earning potential) when the better option was not available. That's just life, not the beginning of the Revolution.
Why would I care more about this interaction than I would the interaction between two parties at flea market, haggling over the price of a vase?
I must pick a side. I am a writer, non-union, unrepresented, and struggling to get into the business as they call it. The union as it was first established as an arm of Comintern (Not even kidding) was and always has been exclusionary, and makes membership a catch-22 situation ... to simplify for the sake of discussion, you can't work if you're not in it, and you can't get in it if you haven't worked.
If I work during the strike, as this situation would now be a great advantage to me and many other young, struggling writers, I will be blacklisted from the union, and in effect the industry. I hate to beat this horse but it truly frustrates me, not that a group of insular insiders would want to stifle fresh competition from a market that is over-saturated with supply, but that they would cloak this in the argument that I personally should show my solidarity by not acting just as selfishly during this time. Especially considering the host of people who have asked me to picket with them, studio contracted all, have never once agreed to help me out in terms of my career.
Something I find interesting is how many people who express concern over monopolies fail to realize that that's exactly what unions are: an attempt to monopolize the available labor pool, so that anyone wishing to purchase labor must do so at the price the union sees fit to sell the labor at.
What's worse is that people who try to break the monopoly are demonized as "scabs" -- and on top of that, the law is structured to make refusing to buy from the monopoly harder to do.
If copyright terms were a more reasonable 5-10 years, this wouldn't be as big of a deal... but with copyright terms lasting essentically forever, expect to see more fighting over ownership of these rights.
EI
EI, no one is actually fighing over the rights. The crux of the issue is that, 20 years ago, when the home video market was in it's infancy and DVDs didn't even exist the WGA decided to strike to get, amongst other things, a percentage of "home video" royalties. At the time it was expensive technology and not used much (certainly not for entire seasons of TV shows) and wasn't making studios any money and so the WGA settled on a fraction of what they normally get for rebroadcasting royalties. Rebroadcasting royalties are generally 2.5% of gross.
But now DVD and Home Video makes amazing amounts of money, and for every $20 DVD set a writer makes $.04.
In addition, now we have streaming video and downloads. None of that gives writers any commissions on anything. The studios claim that, like DVDs of yore, they don't make any money off of the internet streaming and the internet stuff is only "promotional"
Although if it were only promotional why would the studios be selling the downloads at iTunes or hulu? If it were only promotional why would they be selling ad space on the internet streams?
The writers acknowledge that the internet may not be making much money now but it is very likely to start making a huge amount of money in the future. The members of the WGA don't want to get screwed.
And the members of SAG and AFTRA want to make sure that the WGA members get a good deal because both of their contracts are up soon and they want their pieces of the pie.
Oh, Peter, if you are having trouble breaking into the business I would recommend reading Jane Espenson's blog:
http://www.janeespenson.com/
She has very constructive ideas about how young writers can break into TV and film. As someone who used to work in the business reading scripts I can tell you she is absolutely right. If you've done all that stuff and you still can't get a job or into the union then perhaps you're just not very good.
EI -- I'm sorry, just to clarify:
All this work the writers are doing is called "Work (made) for Hire" the network owns it the moment it's put on the page.
The network would still have to compensate the writers regardless of the term of the copyright. The only issue would be that once the 5-10 year copyright period was over neither the network nor the writer would get any residuals (or certainly not much) from the show, which means that for the first 10 years of the life of the show it would be VERY expensive the buy advertising space on the show and download and buy a DVD and then 10 years into it the show would be free. For those first 10 years the prohibitive costs would be passed on to the consumer. Presumably the consumer would rather not waste $400 to buy season 2 of The Office, so they wouldn't buy it and season 3 wouldn't be made because it would not be cost effective. The writers would not get paid and the studios would have less diverse product.
That's why your 5-10 year copyright is bad.
Yeah, that's my understanding as well. There are some terms for paying residuals on DVDs, and the writers want more. But there are NO terms for simple computer down-loads. The studios want to assert that when they bought the right to broadcast I Love Lucy (paying residuals), they also implicitly bought the right to sell downloads from websites (without paying residuals). The writers disagree. This seems pretty fundamental to understanding what this strike is about. But maybe I'm operating under some misapprehension.
From time to time there's a suggestion that libertarians in general, and Megan in specific, are simply cheerleaders for the powerful. So here's an interesting test. Megan, would you mind sharing with us the basis for your assertion that writers have a contract selling the right to use their work for computer downloads?
Kate,
I think you misunderstood ... I was not complaining about my inability to break into the business, which I acknowledge can be a long and arduous task. And admittedly, I have not been doing this very long. What I was saying is that it is hypocritical to portray oneself as a union built on community and solidarity. My point is simply that in a moment when a foot up could be a real help, that advantage is made impossible, and the reason for that is communicated via tired slogans of fellowship and brotherhood amongst an unscrupulous set of backbiters and backstabbers. Now I have no problem with that ... and I learned not to trust people easily long before I came to LA, but come on ... this Eugene Debbs crap is a little hard to sell to guys like me who are in this alone the minute we get here.
I'm going to recommend FarScape to your netflix queue, Megan... it'll be handy after the B5 hangover
I seriously doubt that 10 year copyright terms would make much of a difference in price for television shows and movies. Companies just don't make plans that far out.
That said, 20 years would still be reasonable. The current regime is not "limited" (per the Constitution) in any real sense. The terms last longer than I will live and so are unlimited relative to me.
And given the quality of product (at least that I see on TV and movie screens), I just can't convince myself that the writers, as a whole, are underpaid.
So put me in the "don't really care about the writer's guild" category.
EI
I've done jobs that were very menial and well well below my skillset and training
Yeah, I'm sure these pampered writers have never had to do anything like this. Everyone knows it's easy to get a great-paying job in Hollywood.
"I'm always surprised how many people fail to be sympathetic to striking workers simply because they perceive them to be "well-paid."
Really? How do you feel about managers holding out for a bigger piece of the pie? They're just employees too. So when Michael Eisner negotiates a $300 million deal, we shouldn't object on the grounds that he is already "well paid"? Hell, if you can't object on that ground, what ground is there?
And the same for writers. The objection is precisely that they are paid enough already--or that they are not. There are no arguments about unfair working conditions are there? This is just about money, isn't it? So what are the objections that can be made?
Yeah, regarding the 10 year copyright issue. I'd agree that 20 years is probably more appropriate (still far less than the current absurd terms). But, how many shows that were on the air in, say, 1997 are still being shown in reruns today, or are doing a brisk business in DVD sales? I think if you sat down with the TV listings from that year, you'd find most of the shows died after a season and were never heard from again.
I don't see how a 10 year copyright term could affect the cost of a show that strongly -- like with movies and music, the studios have no way of knowing which titles will become hits with long-term income potential. I'd suspect that the economics have to be calculated based just on the first year, with success beyond that being bonus profit for the most part.
Does anyone have some statistics that would show what percentage of a season's revenues occur in the first, second, fifth, tenth, etc years after production?
"nobody",
I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding of this is that writers work for hire. They have no ownership rights over the shows they work on. So this isn't a case of ownership being undefined.
The reason they're entitled to money from home video sales, or dvd sales, or even from the TV broadcast itself, is that they have a contract SAYING they do. If they don't have a contract saying "you get money when we sell this on DVD", then you don't get money when they sell it on DVD. It isn't that the writer's rights to the revenue are undefined -- its that they ARE defined and the writers don't like the definition.
For example, let's say Microsoft hires me to write a program for them and the contract states that, in addition to the flat fee they're paying me for my work, I'm entitled to "$1 per Compact Disc sold". They sell the program on CD for a while, then start offering it via direct download. How much am I entitled to per direct download? That's easy: $0. The software belongs to them, they can sell it however they like. The only reason they owe me $1 per CD is that I specifically demanded $1 per CD in my contract. I could have demanded $1 per copy sold in any format, if I had wanted to, and maybe they'd have agreed to that... but I didn't, and they didn't, so they don't owe me any money.
I think if you sat down with the TV listings from [1997], you'd find most of the shows died after a season and were never heard from again.
That's a reason for more legal protection, not less. The studios, like drug companies, spend buckets of cash creating 100 losers and finance it all out of 1 big hit; taking away their ability to do that would have a big bottom-line impact.
Nobody:
I thought the point of Megan's post was pretty clear: when there is a dispute between workers and management, there is no a priori reason to side with either side. That's just as true whether it's pipefitters or Holywood writers.
Sometimes, you can look at the situation and find sympathy for one group or another--say, you can see that the union's demands will bankrupt the industry if accepted, or that management is trying to squeeze a few more pennies out of people one missed paycheck from the homeless shelter. But in this case, it's hard to see that.
This is a business negotiation. It seems to me to have all the moral significance of a hardball negotiation between Wal Mart and some Chinese factory for cheap window cleaning fluid. I'm not bound to root for either side of such negotiations. Perhaps if I knew more, I'd have some idea about what outcome would be best, but there's zero information about that available in the labels of "labor" and "management."
Nobody/Marcin,
I think you're mischaracterizing the issue. The issue isn't about the status of residuals under the old contract, but whether the writers will be getting more residuals from these formats in the future. The writers believe (correctly, IMHO) that DVDs and downloads will becoming increasingly central to the returns on the studios get on their works and want a bigger share of it going forward, because the share under the previous contract for those formats was pretty small or non-existent, since there wasn't much money to be made in those formats in the past compared to the other formats. The offers the studios put on the table for the new contract were smaller that the writer's were willing to accept, so they're striking now. Striking is probably a smart tactical move by the writers since odds are they can get a better offer, but there is no inherent fairness argument for any particular terms for the contract other than that both sides have to find it acceptable.
That's a reason for more legal protection, not less. The studios, like drug companies, spend buckets of cash creating 100 losers and finance it all out of 1 big hit; taking away their ability to do that would have a big bottom-line impact.
That's certainly the theory I've heard claimed, but I'd still be interested as to what extent it's really true. If it works like that, then Cheers and MASH must be funding half of the television industry at this point. What percentage of their gross revenues come from shows that are ten years old? Twenty? These are publically traded companies, the financials must be around somewhere.
Dan,
Agreed. I think the large majority of people in Hollywood on the creative end of the spectrum are not too schooled, self or otherwise, in matters of economics or business. There is an overwhelming trend I notice to rely on a very cursory appeal to one's sense of idealistic justice and egalitarianism when it comes to work.
I happen also to have come out here with some other work experience on my back (oil refinery, rubbish removal, real estate). And it seems to me one thing many of these writers do not realize is that you sometimes MUST negotiate for the terms you want. Compromise is the resort of mature and rational brains. A strike in the case of a contract situation such as this is utopian and naive.
Rob,
There's a pretty big difference between "studio" financing and that of the Pharmas.
see: http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=Hedge+Funds+go+to+Hollywood
Alot of 'studio' financing is syndicated before the first Director yells "Action"...on the flip-side, alot of the "Pharmas" research is done in/by publically-funded Unis, but that's a different story(with maybe Sequel potential)..
Also, if these 'witers' are being so hard-pressed why don't they, speaking of Sequels, jump-start a United Artists 2.0 (?)
see the wiki history for the original:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Artists
But in real life, the doing of the fun things is rarely easy, and their plight doesn't exactly tug at my heartstrings.
It's not a matter of tugging at heartstrings, anony-mouse. It's a matter of whether the public should be reasonably sympathetic to writers' attempts to get a contract that's fair to their efforts. Look, the public's sympathies tend to run against strikes, because strikes involve workers trying to improve their deal by refusing to deliver a service or product to the public. When people can't ride the subway, get their garbage collected, go to a baseball game, or watch new episodes of their favorite show, they get annoyed, especially when the workers are rich (as in baseball) or at least pretty well-off (as with your average joe screenwriter). This is different from business-to-business negotiations or business-to-consumer negotiations; those negotiations are just price disputes, they don't result in a visible denial of all service, and people don't blame the business in the same way when it hikes prices, they just internalize the iron logic of the marketplace.
With screenwriters, the standardized terms of the contract that gets set by the Guild are pretty much impossible for individuals to improve on. In principle one writer could say, "Great, glad you liked the spec script, but for the episode of Heroes I work on I want 1% of the revenues for downloads from iTunes - forget what it says in the standard contract." But that writer will never work in Hollywood. That standard contract needs to get set in collective bargaining. As revenue shifts towards the net, writers need to change the terms of the contract. Unfortunately their weapon of last resort in those negotiations is to shut off the flow of good new material.
Finally, Megan's description of the situation -- "The writers have a contract. They are selling a product--the right to their work--to the studios. The writers would like to sell this product on more generous terms; the studios would like to buy it on less generous terms. If either party is dissatisfied with the terms, it can refuse to enter the transaction." -- suggests she believes there can be no such thing as an exploitative contract. Let's take a familiar example. Phil Spector has made hundreds of millions of dollars over the years off of songs written by Brill Building professionals and performed by black R&B artists, many of whom ended up poor and forgotten. Is it meaningful to say Spector exploited those artists? After all, if they had been dissatisfied with the terms, they didn't have to enter the transaction.
Megan may be right that the use of the term "expropriated" was a poor choice of words. How about we substitute "appropriated", and then we can discuss whether the clause in the standard contract that surrenders royalties on electronic derivative media "forever and throughout the universe" sounds like it ought to be changed.
Finally, Megan's description of the situation ... suggests she believes there can be no such thing as an exploitative contract.
No, it doesn't. All it suggests is that if one party thinks the contract is unfair, then it is their burden to prove it to the rest of us before they get our sympathies.
Brooksfoe: I don't know what Megan thinks, but I certainly think there is no such thing as an exploitative contract. Assuming, of course, that both sides were competent adults who entered into it under informed consent. If you think differently, I'd be very interested in what test you employ to decide whether such a contract is "exploitative".
That doesn't mean I'm "for" the studios, or the workers. If the writers get the studios to agree to pay them $100/hour and give them 120% of gross sales in all formats, that's fine by me. It's also fine by me if the sudios get the writers to work for $1 per script and give up all rights to their work. I'm only interested in intervening if someone breaks whatever contract they agree to, misrepresents the terms of the contract, or pulls out a gun.
I think all this wondering about 'fair' and all that is a bit misplaced concerning Hollywood.
I've never worked in Hollywood, but looking at it from afar, it seems to me it's a place that is even less laid about money and who gets what than Wall Street is. No matter how crass, materialistic and obsessed which how much money they've got Wall Streeters can get, they can't hold a candle to Hollywood, Hollywood is the real deal.
The strike is a dispute between two groups of mammon worshipping greedy pigs, who are not out after 'justice' of 'fairness' but every last stinking dollar that they can pry away from each other. If the whole thing is about the writers getting a percentage of DVD sales, thinking about 'fairness' is neither here nor there, there's some cash there, the writers ain't getting any and they wants some and they mean to get some. That's about it.
Andrew,
I am pretty sure that the 100 failures to one success is actually based on the production of pilots, not shows that make it on the air, although a pilot these days can cost upward of $2 million. To my recollection each of the major networks commissions roughly 20 pilots (not including reality shows) each year of which five or six at each network actually get picked up, usually for a 13 episode or 20-24 episode run. If they are successful enough (typically 2 or 3 shows per year per network) then they get picked up for a second season and stay on the air until either the viewership drops or the producers get tired. In other words only 10%-15% of pilots actually get to the point where they get a second season. Also, there are many shows that have borderline ratings for the first season, get renewed and then get canceled during or after the second season. So perhaps 7% or 8% of pilots commissioned actually get a run beyond two seasons. Of those, most are successful enough for a network to leave them on the air especially as filler against hit shows on other networks or for friday nights (which is known for having mediocre ratings across the board), but would not be defined as true hit. Numb3rs is currently in its fourth season and Las Vegas is in its fifth but I don't know anyone who would consider them hit shows. In other words a true money making hit is probably less than 1% of pilots commissioned.
As to your comment about 10 year old (and older) shows, to my knowledge there are only four non-reality shows currently airing new episodes that have had a 10 year or longer run, the original Law and Order, ER, The Simpsons and King of the Hill. Also, on cable, Stargate SG-1 (another sci-fi show for Megan to put in her netflix queue) just ended a 10 year run this past June. So of all the shows on network and cable TV, only five shows that have aired episodes in the 2007 calendar year lasted for 10 or more seasons. Many, if not most of the re-runs on the air are earlier seasons of current shows. Networks probably do not make much money off of older shows except for a few like Cheers and M.A.S.H. that were and are extremely popular and do get a lot of re-run airtime or the handful shows with a cult following (most of which are sci-fi) that will sell well on DVD.
if you went through das kapital and prefaced every proposition with the phrase "markets are wonderful but" you'd have ezra klein's philosophy.
Dan,
I am a lawyer, though I don't claim to be an expert, but rights when it comes to copyright are specific - you can have the book rights, for instance, without the film rights.
So if you have a deal where I write something for you and then you can broadcast it, that means you have the right to broadcast it, but if now someone else invents a new medium, like the internet, now that is a new right that there is NO CONTRACT about because we never came to any agreement about me selling to you the right to use my copyrighted work for the internet, we only had a deal for broadcast.
The writers (rightly) don't want to get screwed by new mediums becoming great profit factories that the producers then totally cut out the writers from any cut of. The writers' position is a simple and fair one - if producers get paid, writers get paid. Period. Simple. Fair. The producers want to leave open certain mediums for them to make money without having to pay the writers at all. Or the chance to invent a new medium that they can then use all previous material on without having to pay any pesky writers - you know, those creative people who actually make things of value.
I tend to disagree with Megan's feeling that the writers have the upper hand. 15 years ago UAW workers thought they were indespensible, only to be displaced by Mexicans and Alabamans who were happy to take their jobs. While writing a script is obviously a difficult job, not all of the first-rate scriptwriters are employed as such. The media execs now have a huge incentive to find these people, and to find enough of them so that they can completely avoid union writers (the Toyota method, if you will). I think it's possible, although difficult...but time will tell.
There is no a priori reason to favor one side or the other. The writers have made bad decisions and bad contracts in the past, and the producers have benefitted from it as DVD sales have skyrocketed in the last 10 years. I don't hold it against them to strike and try to get better terms (from their point of view) on the new contract, but I see no reason to support them over the producers or vice versa.
Andrew wrote:
If it works like that, then Cheers and MASH must be funding half of the television industry at this point. What percentage of their gross revenues come from shows that are ten years old? Twenty? These are publically traded companies, the financials must be around somewhere.
As the linked article in Kate's comment at the top (4th comment) states, according to studio account, The Simpsons isn't profitable. Nobody takes a share of profits from TV (or film) anymore. James Garner sued the studio that made The Rockford Files because he had a share of the profits and it never turned a profit. The lawsuit exposed a studio practices like: John and Kay, studio execs, go to Spago for lunch. They BS about company politics, who's available for development deals, etc. At some point Kay asks John: "How's Show A going?" He says; "Fine." They charge the meal and limo to expense accounts and then direct the expense to Show A as "show development discussions".
The money in films and TV is in selling rights to other arms of your media conglomerate and then making the money there. So, Company A sells their TV rights to their cable outlet, who show them over and over with ads inserted. The profits show up at the cable outlet. And there is at least one lawsuit going on claiming that some TV shows were sold to an internally owned cable channel for less than they would have gone for on the open market.
The film/TV business is full of the biggest, baddest sharks in the business world. As one wag said, "In Hollywood it's not enough that you do well, your rivals have to fail miserably."
Amber wrote:
The media execs now have a huge incentive to find these people, and to find enough of them so that they can completely avoid union writers (the Toyota method, if you will). I think it's possible, although difficult...but time will tell.
Won't work. The other unions (SAG, Directors Guild, etc.) won't put up with it. There are 4 unions that even non-union films have to deal with: Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild, WGA, and Teamsters. All of them would strike if the producers brought in scabs.
I have family members that work "below the line" (i.e. not a producer, director, actor, or writer)
and they are looking at financial disaster if this drags on. One works on a TV show that has a stockpile of scripts for most of the rest of the season, but when that ends he'll be unemployed and the only possible income source would be commercials.
Amber, I worked in the entertainment industry for years and mostly worked with writers and scripts for TV, Film & Theater. There is not an overabundance of writing talent in the entertainment industry, there is a lack of it. In the years I read spec. scripts I only read one which was brilliant. One. Out of hundreds. Most people in the WGA are good writers. I honestly believe that good script writers rise to the top of the profession easily. I've seen it happen. There are dozens of competitions out there. They don't care about whether you are pretty or charming, they care that you can write.
When you get into these rarefied occupations, where the labor works to keep its numbers small rather than large, you've really got guilds, not unions. I have neither sympathy nor antipathy for either side.
All I'd say about this is if the writers are the one responsible for more of the success or argue they should get a bigger share of the pie, all they have to do is pool their many resources and put together their own show and sell it to the networks, cable, take a risk and start an online network, sell advertising for it, etc.
Virtually anyone can buy a timeslot if they have the money. Or they can create their own online as I mentioned.
Why don' they? Well they prefer the company that took all the risk originally and continues to take risk guarentee them a payout.
That's fine by me. But don't pretend that the fat cats are hogging all the wealth if you're unwilling to use your wealth to make your own startup.
On Babylon 5: the first season is a necessary evil. Seasons 2-4 are increasingly awesome. Season 5 is fine. The series is really worth watching.
Derek Scruggs wrote: Yeah, I'm sure these pampered writers have never had to do anything like this. Everyone knows it's easy to get a great-paying job in Hollywood.
Suggest reading a bit slower and a bit more carefully. The focus of that response was whether we should be "sympathetic" to a striking union. My response was, No, I am not, and if any of the writers do end up having to do other jobs that are less to their liking in order to make ends meet, it's just life.
brooksfoe wrote: It's not a matter of tugging at heartstrings, anony-mouse. It's a matter of whether the public should be reasonably sympathetic to writers' attempts to get a contract that's fair to their efforts.
Let's consult a dictionary before continuing, since that word "sympathy" seems to be hanging up many of the arguments:
sympathy, sim·puh·thy (n): (1) harmony or agreement of feeling, esp. in sorrow or trouble. (2) favor or approval. (3) feelings or impulses of compassion.
This does not exactly describe my approach to a contract dispute between parties who work in the entertainment industry. Upton Sinclair-type conditions are about 14 levels below what these people go through in order to make a living; they are working in an industry that exists solely because society is rich, just like people who spend their days developing, say, video games. (And if you really want to see something resembling an exploitative contract, take a look at what kind of sweatshop Electronic Arts runs when it acquires development firms or contract programmers. Interestingly, lots of people voluntarily enter these contracts anyway, because it provides the opportunity to work in the video game industry, work experience, and much less risk than running one's own company.)
Nonetheless, if the society we live in were less rich, they would have turn their talents to less prestigious work and pursue their other interests as hobbies, just like what a majority of people do; or else find specific patrons for their work, just like every almost every other full-time artist in the history of mankind.
I don't begrudge them their work, and I don't have a stake in their contract dispute (which, as I already stated, they are welcome to pursue as long as they can afford to do so). I also don't have any specific "sympathies" for either side in this strike because I see no valid reason to be sympathetic.
Besides, if you ARE going to be sympathetic, why sympathize with the striking WGA, considering that they probably have enough collusive clout to get what they want out of this? Why not the much larger collection of contract and temp workers at the next rung down, which -- as some commenters have noted -- will soon find themselves indefinitely out of work in 80% or more of the entire industry, while the WGA/Studio contract dispute wears on? And with those people out of work, what about the smaller and less-ritzy restaurants, dry cleaners, etc. that the wealthy do not patronize, but these lower-level workers do?
The geometric progression of one's sympathies could soon fill the known universe. And that, without accomplishing anything at all in regards to this situation.
Dear Sam,
Until 1985 networks were forbidden by the FCC from creating thier own entertainment content. At that time there were over 40 independant production companies that took the financial risk and produced television shows that allowed the networks to put things on the TV. The networks would pay a fee for the right to show the program, the network would sell advertising space and the production company would make the bulk of the money on syndication rights (if the show was successful). If a production company made a pilot for a network and the network didn't like it then the production company could go to another network and offer it to them. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but there are a bunch of famous ones, where CBS passed and NBC picked up and whatever it was made everyone rich.
That changed when the rules changed in 1985. Now networks own the programming and have tighter controls over what gets produced. If Network A doesn't like the pilot that they have commissioned you to make, you can't go off to another network and sell it to them.
In addition, Networks don't necessarily sell time on their networks to just anyone, and certainly wouldn't sell prime time space to a competitor. They have some discresion on that front. So while you're theory is a lovely one and certainly was applicable before 1985 it no longer is. And regardless of the prevelence of the Internet and cable, prime time broadcast on network TV is where the eyeballs are.
Fair enough Kate. And, to be sure, Greg Berlanti, Tina Fey, Rob Thomas, et al do have bargaining power, and lots of it. But there's a lot of mediocre television out there, and it's those writers that I think could be replaced with scabs pretty seamlessly.
I think the most interesting thing about this strike is the potential for a major paradigm shift--either the writers bypassing the middlemen and creating their own network, or the networks finding scab writers, actors, producers, etc. Of course, probably neither will happen, but it interests me nonetheless.
I had the same thought that Amber did. The networks need content. If they can't get it from Hollywood, they will get it elsewhere. Toronto? England? Some other group of writers and actors who have not yet hit the big time?
Look at the old American Football League. All it takes is money.
Prediction: The WGA settles this year.
DBB,
I'm also a lawyer, and I do claim to be an expert, since IP is what I do.
17 U.S.C. 201(b): In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright.
The writers employed by studios own nothing, and if new forms of media appear, they have no legal right to anything except what their contract gives them. That's why this is being settled by striking rather than suing.
Kate,
As someone who has worked in an industry that colluded to produce a program (not an infomericial, but an on going series of I think 20 episodes), bought the time slots, and sold advertising I think you're mistaken here.
If you have a show, and the network can make money from it, they will air it. Certainly there are exceptions, but pointing to exceptions and other specific reasons why they should say "no" does not mean they wouldn't say "yes" 80% of the time if it was profitable.
And if the internet is useless then why are they arguing they should get paid per download. I haven't looked closely into their claims, but if they suggest anything of the sort that's entirely outrageous. Video streaming is completely subsidized on the theory that maybe somehow the hundreds of millions being spend on video servers and bandwidth will pay off. Why should they pay more money up front when they are already loosing it on downloads?
The main point is, if you as a writer or union are not satisfied you can always go and start something else, if you think it is so easy to do that management should be catering to your demands.
Somehow there are more networks on TV than there used to be. This would seem to imply that starting a new network, while difficult is not impossible. I still maintaint that if writers are so good that they deserve a greater share of the pie from those do nothing fat cats, then they should go and start their own network and since it is so easy they'll be making all the money on their own.
Now, when the writers admit that they need the networks, and that the networks do: most of the work, put up most of the money, take most of the risk, then talking about fair compensation is appropriate. But I've negotiated with too many people who think that because I make a good profit employing them they are somehow entitled to a large chunk of the pie. Personally I prefer to reward people according to their merits on an individual basis and have always argued for larger bonuses being given to deserving individuals. But I see far too many people who think they "deserve" more simply because the business is selling something at a profit which they claim "costs next to nothing".
I'd be very interested in what test you employ to decide whether such a contract is "exploitative".
*Cough* Assymetrical information. In the vast majority of employment contracts the company has a substantial information advantage. The only real exception is at the C level. The reason public company CEOs make so much money is because all the other public companies have to publish the salaries of their CEOs. So the company no longer has the information advantage. This same phenomenon plays out in professional sports, which is why team owners all want salary caps -- it offsets some of the information advantage. (Not completely. That's why A-Rod and his agent are the only people who can see all the bids.)
Usually there's a resource advantage too in that companies can afford to hire an army of attorneys to write their contracts. This is part of the reason agents are so valuable in entertainment industries.
Derek,
By that standard, any contract is going to be exploitive except in those rare cases where information is identical.
"This whole thing stinks like yesterday's diapers."
--- Baby Herman
Yancey - the point is not that information asymmetry is ipso facto exploitative. Rather, it's that the "it's voluntary therefore it's not exploitative" line is frequently bogus when you dig into specifics, and it usually involves informat ("I didn't realize that XXX could happen" being the most common complaint people raised after the fact.)
Better stated by Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut: In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
Businesses talk all the time about exploiting competitive advantages, particularly by arbitraging labor costs. Why not with employees and especially non-employees like the Phil Spector example cited above?
BTW I generally don't like unions and I'm a business owner. But I live in the real world and have seen both sides of salary negotiations up close.
The writers employed by studios own nothing, and if new forms of media appear, they have no legal right to anything except what their contract gives them.
Rob -- having worked in the field, I was under the impression that there was actually a window of uncertainty back in the early '90s when electronic derivatives began to appear, and hadn't been specifically addressed in the old contracts. But I thought language was quickly introduced to explicitly include all electronic derivatives of the work as part of the work for hire, and that "forever and throughout the world" seemed to have been changed to "forever and throughout the universe" at about the same time. Or am I smoking too much weed?
Hey Rob,
Then you know that even with a "work for hire" arrangement, that authors get their rights reverted back to them after a period of time, to counter the huge advantage studios and producers have over writers in negotiations, and that there is no way to sign away that future right no matter what the contract says - which is probably part of why the producers have to negotiate even regarding old material.
Derek: Your point is well-taken: asymmetrical information happens. But there are somple problems with using asymetrical information as a criteria for exploitation.
One is that asymmetrical information exists in the other direction, too. When a worker negotiates a contract, he knows much better than his prospective employer whether he has a really great idea or is feeling all dried up, whether he is really excited about the work or just really needs the insurance converage, etc. With asymetrical information on both sides, how do you decide who is exploiting whom?
Even if it were all on one side, asymmetrical information is too strong a criteria. When I buy coffee at my local cafe, there is a massive asymmetry of information regarding the supply chain, quality control, the competitive landscape, etc. that went into my coffee. If I had all that information, I probably could get a better coffee at a lower price. But that fact doesn't destroy my consumer surplus: I'm still willing to pay at least as much as I did for what I got. It would be strange to argue that I had been "exploited". The same argument applies to a worker selling his labor: presumably he has a producer surplus, otherwise he wouldn't have sold at that price; the fact that he could have got even more if he had known something else doesn't make that surplus disappear.
As an attorney, I advise you not to smoke weed.
The question that might have arisen (I was in high school at the time, so I didn't witness it) would have been whether new media could be stuffed into old contractual categories. If you get a percentage of "videotape" sales, does that count Laserdiscs? DVDs? And so on.
But the question was certainly not whether the writers had accidentally retained any rights in their works as authors.
To illustrate, suppose I write a novel in about 1900, and I grant the right to publish the books to A, and the right to produce a theatrical play to B. When movies and television are invented, neither A nor B has any right to produce a film or television program based on their pre-existing grants of rights; it's a new right that I can sell independently.
On the other hand, if I'm a ghostwriter who produces a novel for salary which is licensed for publication and stage production, when TV comes along, I have nothing. The guy who paid me to write it gets to sell it to NBC and doesn't have to give me a thing.
That is the significance of calling the employer the "author" of the work. The "author" owns everything he doesn't explicitly give or sell to others; the guy who did it for hire owns nothing. His relationship to the copyright is the same as the relationship between the UAW worker with the underfunded pension and fat health plan and the cars he produces on the assembly line.
DBB...no.
First off, renewal has been eliminated from the law for works created after January 1, 1978; they now last for 70 years after the author's death.
17 U.S.C. 302(a)
As you can see from subsection (c) of the same section, works made for hire get protection for 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter.
Again, the employer is the "author" for the purposes of copyright law; the actual creator is a nobody. Screenwriters lobbied to change that rule but failed, as you can see if you read the house report under "notes" on the linked page.
I should point out that the employment contract could, as a theoretical matter, assign the copyright to the employee. No idea if the WGA contract does that; if it does, then this is a very different discussion.
And in terms of when it expires, the short answer is, probably never...
The more exact answer is, expect that in the few years before Mickey Mouse and other valuable Disney properties have their copyright expire, Congress will be lobbied yet again to extend it (as they did last time it got close), perhaps out to 200 years. And so on and so on... Copyright in terms of duration is basically permanent, at least until sensible justices at the Supreme Court step in and actually enforce the constitutional limit rather than allowing extensions into perpetuity.
The current copyright length is a ludicrous thing, but nonetheless, all the constitution does is grant the protections "for a limited time" and then tell delegate to Congress the authority to figure out what the time limit is. Arguments I've read on the matter, from legal scholars who would prefer them to be shorter, nonetheless don't see it as being an issue in which the high court could legitimately interpose itself at this point.
And for better or worse, the average person isn't personally affected by copyrights sufficiently to make it an electable issue for some would-be Congresscritter. So whenever someone like Disney shows up looking to give and receive favors, that's the only voice Congress hears.
The writers have a contract. They are selling a product--the right to their work--to the studios. The writers would like to sell this product on more generous terms; the studios would like to buy it on less generous terms. If either party is dissatisfied with the terms, it can refuse to enter the transaction.
This is typical libertarian business-fandom nonsense: the whole basis of the dispute is that property rights were undefined.....
Not true, surely. The property rights were (and are) completely defined, and belong to the studio.
The basis of the current dispute is that the previous deal gave what the writers thought at the time was a fair royalty price for video/DVD/whatever distribution, and it turned out that the studios got rather more money than had been expected. So now it's time for contract renegotiation, and the writers want what they consider a "fairer" share of the pie, and also want to not make the same lowball estimate they made with home videos about internet broadcasts. It's just a contract negotiation.
The way some people here are going on, you'd think there was a constitutional right to new TV or something.
Oh, and sam:
All I'd say about this is if the writers are the one responsible for more of the success or argue they should get a bigger share of the pie, all they have to do is pool their many resources
That's rather what a union is, no? The writers are indeed "pooling their resources" and saying "we're not going to come to work for you unless you offer us a better deal". The studios can take it or leave it. There's no law requiring studios to hire union writers, is there?
First off, renewal has been eliminated from the law for works created after January 1, 1978; they now last for 70 years after the author's death.
17 U.S.C. 302(a)
As you can see from subsection (c) of the same section, works made for hire get protection for 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter.
Again, the employer is the "author" for the purposes of copyright law; the actual creator is a nobody. Screenwriters lobbied to change that rule but failed, as you can see if you read the house report under "notes" on the linked page.
Ah, but the reason the WGA members originally agreed to define their scripts as "work for hire" was because the studios gave up residuals. The WGA contract is a particular, specific, well-nigh unique version of work-for-hire. We later lobbied to change the rule because, basically, we realized that we were at the mercy of the studios honest accounting and further good faith definitions of residuals.
As you can see, that was somewhat prescient.
Again, people, and I cannot say this enough, the DVD contract renegotiation is a side issue. The primary issue is internet downloads. Simply put.
1.) Under the current, rather odd work-for-hire relationship between the studios and writers, they must pay us residuals for reuse of authorship.
2.) They want to show entertainment on the internet, but not pay us ... for now. They are fully aware that at some point they're obligated to pay us, which is why the whole "three year study" proposal is on the table.
3.) We would instead like to get paid starting now, please, for material they are showing -- and earning income with -- now.
4.) The negotiation is not whether the writers get a pay raise. It is over getting paid ZERO when material is distributed through this new media. The strike primarily came about because the AMPTP is asking us to trust them on what is essentially the exact same model with which we got a horrible DVD deal, but somehow, impressively, even worse.
We'll even as I mentioned in my previous comment which I can't seem to find (ahem) set aside the act that any discussions or suggestions predicate on ths being a free market don't apply. Six companies functionally control all mainstream production and distribution in the US, and they are negotiating as a bock.
Again, I hope that sets the table for a more informed discussion.
jonrog1,
Thanks for the informed opinion that you want to get paid for downloads that earn them income "now".
I am could be mistaken, but I was under the assumption that web video and tv show websites did not actually make money, but rather served as an advertising expense for the televised show or at best as added value for the advertiser to get featured online when they make a media buy on television.
Can you point us to any income sheet relating to television show websites that provide free content?
It is by no means cheap to distribute content online. YouTube burned through virtually all of its start up cash without ever making a dime before selling out to google.
I can understand how the TV exec would be hard pressed to pay you per download when they already pay for web designers and their work stations, servers, streaming/bandwidth fees, all for the priviledge of letting people download that content for free.
So when you can point me to the income relating from these websites (are they charging for access? are they selling in-stream ads? are they selling banners ads?) then I can agree you should get a piece of the pie.
But negotiating that you should be paid now, for something they are likely losing money on now as they explore how they can make money is ridiculous.
In the end I could care less about TV. I haven't owned one for 3 years. But something just rubs me the wrong way when I see a financial whiz claim that "free exposure" is making some company a bundle of money. (that exposure is hardly free when you look at the underlying costs - there is a reason why content streamer Akamai has a market cap of 6 billion dollars)
What's wrong with a percentage of gross on all uses? Right now there's no incomeon the internet, so no payment for that, but in the future there will be, so payment can start. Meanwhile, if the internet really is effective publicity, it will bump up the gross for broadcast and DVD, doing the WGA some good.
Saves you trouble on the accounting, too.
Jonrog1: In economic terms, monopoly power does not make a market not free, it just makes it less competitive. (And if participant-counting is how you determine monopoly power, then it's the union that has the monopoly power, since there's only one of it.)
Look, it's fine by me if the writers get paid per internet download. But I do object to your implication that they deserve that based on some cosmic fairness standard, rather than because the value and scarcity of their skills gives them the leverage to demand it.
For an economy to function properly, it's critical that prices (or, more generally, contract terms) carry information about value and scarcity. If we allow notions of cosmic fairness to determine prices, important information needed to determine how labor and other resources should be re-allocated across the economy is lost.
By all means, extract all the money you can from the studios. Just don't try to extract any sympathy from consumers.
I heard a writer I know who was forced to stop working (he has a wife and three children) because of the strike, and who does not want to strike respond to another WGA Comrade ...
The fellow said to him when he expressed his trepidation at the amount of work he might miss on the TV show, "Come on Man. They're gonna fuck us."
To which the writer replied, "They can fuck me all the way to the bank."
'Nuff said.
"Disgusted",
So if you have a deal where I write something for you and then you can broadcast it, that means you have the right to broadcast it, but if now someone else invents a new medium, like the internet, now that is a new right that there is NO CONTRACT about because we never came to any agreement about me selling to you the right to use my copyrighted work for the internet, we only had a deal for broadcast.
You're confusing writers with producers, it seems to me. The latter (usually) own the show. The writers own nothing. They aren't selling the broadcasting rights to a show -- they're selling their labor to the people who MAKE the show. If you're hired to write a script for "Two and a Half Men", you're not selling the broadcast rights to a "Two and a Half Men" episode to the people who produce the show. You're just doing work for hire; you're the literary equivalent of a carpenter -- you might frame the house, but you've got no say at all in what's done with it.
Through no fault of your own, you are stranded in the desert days away from civilization and doomed to die of thirst. By chance, a good samaritan just happens by and offers you a lift back, for a price. She demands &50,000 up front, $2,000 a month for life, and access to your sexual favors for the next tweny years, starting right now in the back seat of her Jeep. Of course, she's not forcing you to sign a contract, you're free to turn her down, and she'll just drive away . . .
Most people - the overwhelming majority of people - would, I imagine, say you are being coerced into signing an exploitive contract. I suspect a lot of people here wouldn't.
Most people - the overwhelming majority of people - would, I imagine, say you are being coerced into signing an exploitive contract. I suspect a lot of people here wouldn't.
Coerced by whom?
The Good Samaritan. I'm guessing you don't agree with the majority of the American people.
Most people - the overwhelming majority of people - would, I imagine, say you are being coerced into signing an exploitive contract.
That's because the overwhelming majority of people are incapable of thinking rationally about the behavior of people they find personally repugnant.
Here's a slightly different scenario: you are diagnosed with acute stomach cancer and given less than a month to live. A doctor proposes a highly experimental procedure that will cost you $50,000, plus thousands of dollars a month for anti-cancer drugs afterwards -- all of that refundable if the procedure fails, of course. Are you being "exploited" by the doctor? The overwhelming majority of people who say "no". You aren't being exploited, and you aren't being coerced -- you're being offered a chance at life where none previously existed.
And, of course, there's little difference between the two scenarios (aside from the sex -- but since when is demanding regular sex from a man a "cost" anyway). In both cases a man expects a great deal of money to save you from certain death. That people react so differently to the two situations illustrates how little impact rational decision-making has on our appraisal of economics. The first scenario is "exploitation" because the idea of being a TRUE "Good Samaritan" is deeply ingrained in us; the latter isn't, because we're used to doctors charging a lot of money for life-saving procedures. But morally speaking, both scenarios are nearly identical.
Uh, Dan? Cost? All the woman needs is a ride back into town.
Yes, I know. That's an 'irrelevant irrationality'.
Scent, I have no problem with saying the women is immoral and cruel.
Playing hypotheticals is pretty silly though. What if the woman driving back is charging that rate because there is a carjacker in the back seat that says he will shoot her in the head if she gives the man a ride for anything less than 50,000?"
What if the terrorists demand we leave the Middle East and stop supporting Isreal or else they'll keep trying to kill us?
Oh wait, we already know you're answer to that one...
I'm just boggling at SOV's apparent attempt to compare the situation of TV writers to that of someone who's "stranded in the desert days away from civilization and doomed to die of thirst."
Care Bear Stare...too strong...must...find Oakley thermonuclear sunglaaaaaaghh...
Uh, Dan? Cost? All the woman needs is a ride back into town.
Surgery costs a surgeon even less. He just has to poke you with a $5 scalpel. Yet there's no outrage if he charges for that service.
No, I'm afraid I'm quite correct -- the reason people feel outrage in the one case and not the other is because we're conditioned that way. Both situations involve a person getting paid because he's the only one who can provide a necessary service to save someone's life.
Let me simplify it for you: is your life worth a lot more than $50,000? If so, then a person who offers to save it for only $50,000 is giving you a bargain. If you don't like it, look around for a better offer.
I'm personally pretty neutral on this. On the one hand, I'm prejudiced against strikes and strikers in general; on the other hand, I do think that the entertainment biz is run by some of the slimiest people in existence.
The beautiful thing is, they may well find themselves in the position the dinosaurs were in after the meteor, in about twenty or so years. With the equipment getting cheaper and easier to use by the year, independent moviemakers may well end up taking away a lot of Hollyweird's business. *AWWWW!*
One thing I like about that scenario would be to break the Hollywood subculture's veto on what movies may be made. There's tons of good stuff that can't be done because it's anti-Communist, and any such thing rouses the wrath of people in "the industry" who haven't forgotten or forgiven the 1950s investigations. I'd love to do a movie about the siege of the Alcazar in Toledo during the Spanish Civil War, but since it would have to make Franco's guys the good guys and heroes (because they were, at least that time) Hollywood wouldn't even look at it.
I have some insanely great ideas for scripts. Studios - please contact me and make a generous offer! Currently the stories are too much sex and too little brutal violence and this is not ideal for the US market - but I am willing to change this given some incentives? I understand that the supply shortage is causing wages to rise?
I do not care if I am being blacklisted by the Red Army - I will use a fake name anyway and change it once the strike is over. In case the union finds out about this - I will simply enter a contract directly with the studios and NOT the guilty guild!
Or am I missing something... How can the guild prevent me from working? What does blacklisting mean? They are not a government and blacklisting is AGAINST the fair employment act?
Don't get me wrong. I am all for writers getting their fair share - and this should include all channels (Internet). Google programmers don't care if their code has been used by 500 million people more than they first envisioned when they started working for Google - because they have stock options? But many journalists are not partners at their publications?
In theory - Disney writers could buy Disney stock options themselves given a good wage and do not need to wait for Disney to offer it?
But there is nothing wrong with re-negotiations. I am also for people striking and walking the streets - I love grassroots.
But what the union is doing is not grassroots and protest. It is blackmail. Explain - "blacklisting" of writers to me again!!!
What if I am one of the less successful writers who earns the bear minimum and who has to feed a family. How do I survive during the forced blackmailing? If I were a rich writer - I can only win. But if I am one of the many poor ones - I can lose?
It is the same with unions and the minimum wage. Those who have guaranteed work do benefit from an increase in the minimum wage and a strike at the expense of the poor or the unemployed. The unemployed are blacklisted from employment (and hence need more social security tax spending while the economy has become less efficient and hence less tax revenue is available)...
If I were a Civil Rights or Human Rights lawyer - I would sue the guild for their blackmailing of the poor! Striking and protesting is GREAT. Blackmail is NOT! Countries that have compulsory military service should not hand out Medals of Honor. They should rather rethink the meaning of "honor" and ethics!
Megan:
I haven't even started Lost or Babylon 5
Give Battlestar Galactica a try. There's an interesting episode in season 2 about the utility (and necessity) of unregulated markets. Make sure to start from the very beginning of the series (the miniseries) or nothing in the show will make any sense.
I think you might be misunderstanding the issue. The reasons the WGA are striking seems to be that the studios have taken a unanimous position that digital content is not covered by existing agreements and not worthy of compensation.
I'm not exactly a pro-union person (or, by any definition, an expert on this situation), but this sounds an awful lot like cartel collusion.
"She demands &50,000 up front, $2,000 a month for life, and access to your sexual favors for the next tweny years, starting right now in the back seat of her Jeep."
What does she look like? How much do I make? This could be a pretty good deal.
IIRC eligibility for WGA requires $15k of earnings from writing, and over half the writers in Hollywood don't make that. Well, that means they're not very good. It also points out that CA is a right to work state and union membership in the WGA is not required.
A strike is a negotiating tactic in working out a contract, performed by workers who join together to negotiate to get a fairer shake than if each individual person negotiated their own contract.
In a right to work state, there is no monopoly, because membership is not required.
Closed shop states are tanking and those jobs are moving to open shop states. Even states know how to compete for jobs--right to work laws. Big business can always push state legislatures for right to work laws or threaten to take their business elsewhere--just like pro sports teams and their stadia!
So the market is working just fine.
Apparently, I am being exploited by my company. I design equipment that is used for decades. My company makes money on service, repair, and replacement of parts for this equipment. Multiple units are built from my designs, either as-is, or with slight modifications. Of course, my designs are based on those of past engineers.
I get paid a salary. I don't get paid per use. I don't get paid again when new equipment is made from the design. I don't get paid again when parts are replaced with new ones.
There is no moral reason for writers to get residuals. There is no justice or injustice in whether or not they get residuals. This is just a negotiation between two parties, each trying to get the biggest piece of the pie they can get. Nothing wrong with that, but nothing inherently moral or just about it.
EI