p2pnet news | Movies:- Already in its second week, the WGA (Writers’ Guild of America) strike hasn’t a glimmer of the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

Why are they striking? More money. A fair piece of the DVD/digital pie.

The WGA had been seeking to double the amount of money its members received from DVD sales, but had agreed to lower their demands.

The studios, meanwhile, say higher royalties for writers on new media products will stifle growth at a time of increasing production costs.

Two professional views in the business caught my attention this past week. The first, a tongue-in-cheek, but all-too-true skit (by professional actors) on ‘Saturday Night Live’, in which a ‘Studio Head’ defends the producers side of the argument:

‘Working writers earn on average over $200,000.00 a year. I wish I had $200,000.00. But I don’t. I only have $20,000,000.00.’

And >>>

‘We asked our accountants to figure out what $29.00 (the average retail price of a DVD) minus 60 cents (the cost of making a DVD) is. You know what they came up with? Negative thirteen dollars (-$13.00).’

Watch the clip here:

On a more serious note, TV’s judge Judy Sheindlin (a professional judge) weighs in with this on Larry King Live:’The studios have a reputation of doing creative accounting, of not seeing to it that the talent and writers are compensated sufficiently’. (Just ask ‘LOTR’/'King Kong’ director Peter Jackson.)

When asked if she’d mediate the dispute, Her Honor said, ‘It would be my pleasure (if asked).’Watch the clip here:

Slashdot it!

---

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php

---

Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 at 7:09 am and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

HOME

Viewed 4152 times