The sorry state of streaming residuals shows why SAG and the WGA are striking.
As someone who works in the film and TV industry, let me go ahead and say whatever you do in America, whatever industry: you’re undervalued, underpaid, and your wealthy executives are getting fat on your hard work while you starve.
You spelled capitalism wrong. Social market economy makes it a bit better - but yeah earnings through work and capital gains are extremely off balance right now.
As someone in America I’m not undervalued, underpaid, or starving. Maybe you should stick to speaking for your own industry.
“I’m not struggling so therefore no one else is struggling”
Are you for fucking real?
That’s exactly the myopic thinking that put us in this situation, so you shouldn’t be surprised to find this person.
The thing is, he doesnt necessarily earn a decent wage…thats the real kicker.
Read the first comment though… it suggested that literally everyone is struggling
I only said people are starving because some are, and it’s avoidable. But everyone in America is grossly underpaid compared to executive pay and corporate wealth.
It’s fucking hyperbole. Obviously not literally everyone is underpaid (such as but not limited to CEOs). Like, if ya make a comment like what I responded to it comes off as a snarky and you will get shit on for it.
Ok but you attacked someone for saying that they personally aren’t suffering, even though they weren’t suggesting they speak for everyone either… unlike the other comment
“Um actually 🤓 ☝️”
Have some sense to not post something like this when you are aware of the plight of the average worker in America even if you are in the minority as a tech worker
(I’m also a tech worker)
Honestly even tech workers are not paid enough relative to executives. Shit is crazy out here.
And then lawyers be making like $1mil a year.
Engineer here - we’re undervalued too. We just happen to have more clout in the workplace at the moment, and so more individual bargaining power. That can change on a dime, though.
It’s also just relative scaling. A Starbucks barista might make $40k/year while its CEO Laxman Narasimhan makes $15M/year. Meanwhile, a Google engineer might make $400k/year, but its CEO Sundar Pichai makes $225M/year. So while an engineer will earn way more than a barista, as a fraction of CEO pay, engineers often actually make less. Both are symptoms of worker exploitation. It just so happens that technology companies tend to make a lot more money than coffee companies.
If that changes I’ll figure out the new way. Wouldn’t be the first time, don’t figure it’s gonna be the last.
What do you mean by the new way?
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I don’t really have issues there, either. I actually get in hot water if I don’t take at least 6 weeks of PTO a year, and the maximum is unlimited so long as my work gets done.
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And here we have the typical “Fuck you, I got mine” attitude. How lovely.
Found the CEO…
Bootlicker confirmed
If your CEO has money, you’re probably undervalued and underpaid. It’s how the incentive structure works.
Hahaha, 😅 uhh you most certainly are, buddy! Hate to burst your bubble and bring you back down to reality… I know you hate it when we take the binkiboot out of your mouth to let your breath for a second, but you got to give it up eventually… you’re too old for that now…
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Better they uploaded it on torrent and asked for donations
I’m a former musician and record label employee who’s been screaming “told you so” for years. I stopped paying attention to the pittance I get in streaming revenue because it impacts my life that little.
I hope the writers get what they’re owed, but don’t hold your fucking breath
I don’t understand how streaming isn’t just considered syndication. It seems like a dictionary definition of what it was, even if it didn’t exist when syndication agreements were made.
It’s a rerun of a show on a separate channel/platform. And the writers/actors should get the agreed revenue for it the same as if it were on TMC, nick at night or Netflix b
Indeed. an impartial judge wouldn’t let studios split hairs over words like this but as long as they’re appointed by politicians, they will side with whoever has the deeper pockets, because that’s what’s required for a continuing bright career.
You should support the actor’s and writer’s strike. That’s what I’ll keep bringing up here, do what you can to make things change.
I have been supporting it. I haven’t starred in a single Holywood movie since it began and I haven’t written shit.
That won’t not a permanent option for some of us now, right?
Do what you can, that’s all any of us can hope for.
What can we do? I don’t live by anywhere they are striking.
It’s small, but just talking about it and send a message of support on social media is appreciated.
Maybe they’ll even actually see it.
There’s a donation fund to help the strike continue. The writers aren’t calling for a boycott yet.
https://mashable.com/article/how-to-support-wga-writer-strike
I definitely will donate, thank you friend :)
refuse to watch, read, play, or otherwise engage with anything created by an AI… we just make it a fundamental demand… we don’t want any of that shit…
Donate to the entertainment community fund
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Actually boycotting ironically hurts in this situation.
Writers and actors are encouraging people to keep watching and taking about shows & movies because that underscores the value they bring and are trying to get recognition for, ultimately bolstering their case.
Keep watching anything and everything folks!
When are people going to understand that what you know, what you can do, value, truth, integrity and love have absolutely nothing to do with how much you get paid? The world makes much more sense if you stop assuming being a good person makes you rich. The opposite is true, being a psychopath is far more profitable.
If we placed the appropriate value on the people who reduced suffering the most, there would be statues of Edward Jenner everywhere and he would have been the richest person in the world.
There is an inverse relation between the wage a job pays and the contribution to society that the job makes, with a few exceptions like doctors. The highest paying jobs are very often parasites on society. This seems to originate from the Calvinist work ethic where meaningful work is its own reward.
~ paraphrased from David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs
Most doctors aren’t paid enough either, and the supply of doctors is kept low to keep the price of care high, the cost of becoming a doctor is inflated by, among other things, the amount of residency programs available is limited making them very expensive to get into.
The whole thing is engineered to extract wealth, not functionally deliver a supply of goods and services to those who do work.
with a few exceptions like doctors
Even then… Elective plastic surgeons make far more than virologists or ER techs. Radiologists can earn more by owning an MRI machine and charging for its use than by billing to interpret the machine’s results. Hospital administrators at big clinics earn more than staff physicians. Insurance company admins can earn more than doctors. Shareholders in medical firms earn most of all.
The fact that I had to look up who Edward Jenner was, and that I (unfortunately) immediately know who Kylie or Bruce Jenner is (to use the same last name), cynically proves your point.
Nurses and firemen should drive lambos, bankers should eat scraps. But alas, human nature rewards greed, but expects humanity.
Gross. Writers should be paid fairly.*
Edit: Previously read “Shame on Neflix”. See thoughtful reply below.
While I don’t disagree with the general state, I don’t see how it’s Netflix. They didn’t produce or create Suits, nor were the initial broadcaster, so the contracts were set long before Netflix
How streaming doesn’t count as broadcasting is a tad too convenient for the studio to not be a deliberate loophole. Even when the language is tested in court the lobbyism favors the deep pockets asking to split hairs clearly in bad faith.
Ha, I didn’t understand that, but now I do. Thanks. And agreed that the general state is a shame. Writers deserve to be paid.
This is ignoring the history of how writers traditionally got paid. Residuals made it so that the longer the writer was in the game the more they were supported by the raft of their body of work similar to authors. Residuals were originally fought for by another strike ages past so that a writer was paid a little bit every time an episode was aired as a re-run .
Now re-runs barely exist because of on demand and writers for streaming get paid peanuts. Successful writers have to write like demons and face burning themselves out just to get by. All because the streaming platforms can technically say “it’s not a rerun”. We as a society respect creative IP… Until that creator is on the platform of industry content streaming because a narrow definition of what counts. If it were any other platform like a network it wouldn’t matter who originally contacted it- if you air it a writer gets a share. So Streaming platforms get a massive business advantage over everyone else by screwing over writers.
YouTubers get paid on a more respectable model for the content they produce on these same principles than industry writers.
“It’s Free Money” ~ Studio Executives
What a weird measure of time for a show. It’s not a song. Why not use something more suitable, like views?
Edit: it’s 50 million hours. If each episode is about an hour long, then that’s about 50 million views. If there are 10 episodes per season, then that’s 5 million viewers per season.
It’s semantics, but the equivalent for a song would be plays. I think the problem with using views or plays for a metric like this is that they don’t account for people that take in the entire piece of media. It considers people that accidentally click an episode and then close it after some seconds, and people who watch an episode from start to finish, to be the same. One of those people are going to see a lot more ads than the other, thus making the company more money. Just my hypothesis tho.
in case you weren’t paying attention, musicians get paid shit too
I wasn’t implying they get paid better. The comparison to views vs plays was done to address the “It’s not a song” comment. How did you get that implication from my message?
If all content (all content) was paid for by tax dollars, it would not only be ad free, but there wouldn’t be huge companies standing in-between the artist and the consumer as far as getting the artists paid. And it wouldn’t cost that much. Like less than what you pay for having all streaming services simultaneously.
But imagine the controversy a government would receive broadcasting various kinds of content. People deride the BBC as a mouthpiece of whichever party is in power despite immense work making it as impartial as possible
Yeah, I’m open to being convinced I’m wrong, but on its face, this seems like one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard.
Lol. Lmao even. Have you never heard what happens to government funded research papers?
tell me you didn’t watch the video without telling me you didn’t watch the video
Jesus Christ, if my tax dollars were going to the absolute garbage content that’s being currently produced I would personally run for office to repeal that legislation.
And if the quality is so low when billions are on the line, I am terrified of what we would get when it’s government funded. Even now, you don’t need to look far to see how poorly our taxes are spent. Look into how construction companies take advantage of government contacts.
Then why aren’t you running?
Sounds like you oppose PBS? no? Or the taxes the FCC pays to media corps that come out of your paycheck?
When can I expect you to announce you candidacy?
Go run, big boy. See how many people agree with your ideology. I dare ya.
Government funded art has a tendency of being loyal to their patrons, i.e. the government, which stifles the very essence of the art itself. All content is not for every body, due to taste, and interest. You’re also talking about doing away with advertising, hahahahahahahaha.
You need to watch the film Cradle Will Rock if that’s what you think.
You should watch it anyway because it’s a great movie, but it’s also based on a true story about people getting government funding and using it to put on a socialist musical, which made the government freak out and shut the show down. That is what would stifle art- not artists being loyal, artists not being allowed to dissent.
Such a great movie. So many things to think about after watching.
Sadly whenever I tried to get people to see it, they took the government side. Spending my High School years in Utah was horribly stifling.
You are talking to yourself.
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It’s because that’s what’s rare. Back in the day being literate was extremely rare and most families couldn’t afford to lose the free child farm labor for them to go to school, let alone pay a full time teacher and build a school house with learning materials. Now with free education and tools like computers that make that kind of work and others such as manufacturing with machines and transportation with cars etc. very cheap and plentiful, the hard and rare thing now is to find people who actually like and excel at socializing and connecting businesses and consumers to make deals. AKA middlemen. I don’t like it either but that’s the fact. If it were so easy, everyone would just become the middlemen. Connecting person A with person B is actually a lot harder than it sounds.
Of course, most of us are neuro divergent introverts on the spectrum. Hence why us lowly workers who stay clammed up while working from home or holed up in our cubicles and barely venture outside to hang out in the break room let alone go out for networking events won’t become those middlemen and watch our negotiating power and salaries falter.
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I’m watching suits right now… On Netflix.
I’d heard that the Duchess of Sussex used to be an actress, but I’d never seen her in anything. It was a little strange at first to see her playing a paralegal.
You mean c-tier acres Meghan Markle?
Me too, as I type this. Getting to the end of season 3 for the first time!
Then you’re a part of the problem. Supporting billionaire corporations making stockholders richer.
Hollywood writing is terrible. They can strike - noone cares
You should always care when labor goes against the plutocrats. And you should support it. That you don’t like the quality of the results is a product of said plutocrats putting chains on them.
Here’s a thread that puts it well:
Of course. It’s all about the bottom dollar. No gives two shits about how good something is.
Personally I have a music background, I love music and am a capable guitar player, I’ve studied theory and listened to everything (just about) under the sun. From bluegrass to polka. I like it all.
So when I hear the studio release of paparazzi by Lady Gaga I hear mediocre cookie cutter albeit will produced music. However I once saw a YouTube video of Lady Gaga performing the song on piano live and it was absolutely amazing she is a true musician. But that’s not what sells the studio version of the song is what sells. Nobody’s going to buy Lady Gaga playing the piano while singing. At least not at that point in her career.
So if that version of paparazzi sells let’s make 9,000 other paparazzi’s and sell them. That’s what makes money and everybody else can go to school themselves.
I’ve literally only known about the strike bc it keeps getting mentioned on here. There’s just so many options of entertainment.
Assuming the current all you can watch flat fee model is unsustainable, how do you think a model like videogame (Steam, Epic, etc…) would be perceived? Lower monthly sub. Originals are included. Wanna watch something else? You can watch 2 episodes to start. If you wanna continue buy the season. Sort of like videogames where there are demos.
and no royalties? $3000, would be few, even for only one professional writer.
IP Laws need to change: Melancholy Elephants is a great Hugo Award winning short story about this train of thought.
