Hollywood, writers, square off
p2pnet news | movies:- Monday will see what the Wall Street Journal describes as the opening of what’ll probably be, “a long, painful – and possibly disruptive – stretch of labor negotiations between the major entertainment conglomerates and Hollywood’s three big creative guilds”.
Does that mean those starving writers who’ve been thrown onto the streets by all the wicked P2P file sharers? – one wonders.
The big issue, says the WSJ, is, “how to compensate writers, actors and other entertainment talent for the use of their work in digital forms” and the outcome, “could be messy if terms aren’t reached by the end of October – when the writers could strike and throw the Hollywood entertainment machine into disarray,” says the story.
“How things go with the WGA and the major studios is seen as a bellwether for negotiations next year with the director and screen-actors guilds, both of which see their contracts expire next June 30.
Contract negotiations are being billed as a watershed, “largely because of the myriad new, digital ways that content like movies and television shows are being delivered to consumers,” it goes on.
“Operating under terms, conditions and business models formed 50 years ago is an outmoded way to look at things,” the WSJ has Barry Meyer, chairman and ceo of Time Warner’s Warner Bros Entertainment declaring.
“We don’t want to saddle a new industry with an extension of old-fashioned concepts.”
It’s an interesting point of view considering neither Warner Bros nor the other Hollywood studios, not to mention the Big 4 corporate record labels, seem even remotely close to moving into the digital era, abandoning business models developed in the last century.
Meanwhile, “Industry executives have widely acknowledged they are beginning to stockpile scripts and move up production deadlines ahead of the Halloween contract expiration and a possible writers strike.”
Cinemagoers await the outcome with bated breath.
Not.
Also See:
Wall Street Journal – Digital Era Brings Messy Bargaining, July 13, 2007
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July 14th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
“stockpile scripts” ah a new batch of unfinished scripts full of plot holes for movies at Christmas.
July 17th, 2007 at 9:13 am
And when these stockpile scripts bomb in the box office they’ll blame the Internet. It’s (of course) NOT because the scripts suck. (eyes roll) (sarcasm)