Today is an international day of solidarity for the picketing writers of the WGA Strike. There are several events taking place including a demonstration outside the Trades Union Congress HQ in London, organised by the WGGB, demos in Ireland, Montreal, Toronto, Perty, Sydney and also, a one woman demonstration in Bournemouth by Lucy Vee.

I don’t really have any excuses as to why I didn’t go down to London today (apart from client work, deadlines, having to catch a train and all that) but as is obvious, I’m in full support.

• Jonathan Handel, media lawyer in LA, provides an interesting breakdown of what it will actually cost the AMPTP to agree to the WGA proposals.
• Jericho fans put together a very good video in support of the writers.
• The latest “name the faces” video from Speechless Without Writers.

 
 
 
 
 
(more…)

Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood blog has been running a series of short films about the Writers Strike over the Thanksgiving weekend. The films, part of a series called “Speechless”, star well known actors such as Holly Hunter, William H. Macy, David Schwimmer, Kate Beckinsale, Sean Penn and Harvey Keitel amongst others.

You can see all of them on the site.

Considering some of the armchair commentary I’ve already made about this topic, it would be remiss of me to not mention the fact that negotiations between the WGA and AMPTP are to resume on the 26th November. This is a Good Thing.

Now, I’d like you to consider the sentence you’ve just read. Ignoring the fact that I am obviously biased in favour of the writers, what can you infer from that sentence about who walked away from the table and who suggested re-opening the negotiations? I’m hoping that the answer is “You can’t”. I’m not goiing to spend time re-editing it but on a first pass, I tried to put the news in the most neutral way I could.

Why is this an issue?
(more…)

“It’s impossible to make money from the internet. If you don’t believe me, Google it.”

Genius.

I’m sorry - I said I wouldn’t post that much more about the Writers Strike but, frankly, it stirs me up no end. So read it, don’t read it. I don’t care - it’s on the internet so it’s only for promotional purposes anyway.

The title of this post covers pretty much how Michael Eisner sees the current state of affairs regarding the availability of movies and TV shows over the internet. In an interview with that well known bastion of journalistic integrity and impartiality, Fox News, Eisner, former CEO of Disney, called the current Writers Strike “a stupid strike” claiming that the profit from digital content is “a piece of a nonexistent flow, which won’t be nonexistent, but it will be nonexistent for the next three years.”

Now, Eisner was CEO of Disney up until September 2005. A year later, Disney started selling movies through iTunes. You know, that popular application which lets you buy music, movies and TV Shows over the internet. In November 2006, a little under 2 months after beginning internet downloads, nearly half a million Disney movies had been sold - approximately $4 million worth. After 3 months, the number of downloads had skyrocketed to 1.3 million. In May of this year, current Disney CEO Robert Iger claimed that movie downloads had been surpassed by downloads of Disney TV shows which had reached a figure of 23 million since they had been added to iTunes. Even Disney’s own website now streams 100 million videos per week to over 6 million unique users (and you can make the most of this target audience by buying advertising space on the website).

Eisner suggested that the Writers should be striking outside Steve Jobs house as Apple are obviously screwing the studios out of a fair share of the pie. Perhaps he should have had a quick chat with Robert Iger because, according to Ars Technica,

Disney CEO Robert Iger said that this was because Mickey and Company were quite pleased with Apple’s movie pricing and the margins they were seeing. Although the pricing of a movie on the iTunes store is lower that that of a physical DVD, Disney is making about the same amount of money on each movie it sells there.

The internet - too new to be profitable.

More Writers Strike - I’m sorry, but this video is too outrageous not to share.

Quick recap: the AMPTP (which stands for Fucking Greedy Bastard Megacorporations*) does not want to pay writers residuals for media that is distributed over the internet. There argument is that the internet is too new and that they need 3 years for a study into - well, I don’t know what. How to use YouTube I guess. Their predominant concern appears to be that the internet may not be the cash cow that the writers claim it’s likely to be.

This video shows the heads of most of the major media outlets justifying this concern:

Spread the word.

(Via United Hollywood)

*Is a googlebomb out of the question at this point?

Dragon Claw Fire Horde? Sign me up!

This article is also well worth reading.

Still don’t get what the WGA strike is all about? Tim Kazurinsky explains it on WGN News:

You may have noticed over there ( –> ) that there’s a little badge I’ve put up. Good innit! Took me all fucking morning to make because I am that shit hot with graphics software. I digress.

The Writers Guild of America are on strike. You may have heard about this in the news. If you already have an interest in screenwriting then you will probably know more about it otherwise you may only know what you’ve heard or read from your other news sources, most of which say something along the lines of “The writers are on strike because they want more money”. Essentially, this is true - certainly in the case of residual payments (i.e. royalties) from DVD sales. Writers would like to get double their current payment for the sale of a single DVD unit which, for a $20 sale, would amount to 4 cents.
(more…)