For independent projects to successfully secure one of SAG-AFTRA’s interim agreements during the strike, the production outfits behind them cannot be a part of the AMPTP — the trade association that represents essentially all of the entertainment industry’s big studios. Additionally, productions that receive interim agreements must automatically agree to all of the demands SAG-AFTRA is making of the AMPTP, including significant increases to salary minimums and cutting actors in on 2 percent of the streaming revenue for projects that ultimately end up on services like Netflix and Amazon Prime.
If the only ones able to produce content are those who are willing to meet SAG-AFTRA’s demands, then I don’t see how it’s incompatible with their goals. Where it could create friction, I think, is that if the WGA is not also using similar tactics.
I’m curious because I haven’t seen yet, is music involved in this?
Because I’ve went to rewatch a couple of shows and they stripped out or replaced the music, even critical music, in some cases even the theme song!
Married With Children after season 2 just has some elevator music in place of it’s theme song, which totally isn’t right. Another show I watched had its theme song cut out completely. That 70s Show has a massive fan editing project to figure out and edit back in the music that originally played and gave it its vibe but got ripped out.
And, for Perfect Strangers, they initially only released 2 seasons on DVD, then held up the rest for years and years over whether they could get music rights, and didn’t release them on DVD. For awhile I was pirating them and burning DVDs to send to my mom, but she died, and then they finally released the full series. I don’t even know if it has the proper music and it doesn’t matter now. Too little too late.
I get where the strikers are coming from, but if it doesn’t include music it should. Mainly because I think once something’s part of a show or a movie it should always be fully there. They shouldn’t be cutting out music or actors and re-showing it without them. Imagine watching All In The Family with every scene involving Archie Bunker cut out! Or Breaking Bad with every scene that had Walter White cut out.
Once it’s in there, it should stay. And if their old contracts were too screwy to handle that, they need new contracts. It was the contracts that were flawed. Just fix them. Don’t screw up the shows/movies over that.
I haven’t seen anything related to either the WGA or SAF-AFTRA demands regarding music, but I’m not sure it would fall within either of their purview. By the time decisions are made regarding music licensing for subsequent re-releases of content (Syndication, DVD, Streaming, etc.), the writers and actors are likely not involved. I think you’re right that this has everything to do with the contracts between the show/movie producers and the music producers. My guess is that for older productions, there was no consideration given for any sort of re-release other than syndication, which was probably covered under the original broadcast agreement. I’m assuming that in addition to residuals for writers and actors, there’s also a licensing fee paid for music in a production. I’m guessing that in many cases the decision to change or remove music for a re-release is driven entirely by a desire to reduce the per-unit cost in order to maximize profit for the remaining stakeholders. It’s possible that newer music licensing contracts are written differently, but I’m guessing that’s being driven by the music producers (RIAA?) more often than the show/movie producers. If there’s one thing I know about the record companies, it’s that they want to get paid. I don’t have any first hand experience with any of this, but I have certainly experienced the situation you described where a re-release doesn’t feel right because the music has been altered, usually by replacing very clearly licensed music like a theme song with something that is likely royalty-free or at least has a lower rate. I’ve also seen this affect video games as well, either requiring modification before re-release or leading to entire games being pull from digital distribution due to licensed music and an unwillingness for the producer to modify the game or continue paying license fees. Notable examples of this are re-releases of the Tony Hawk and GTA games.
As Steve Shives pointed out in a video above, much of the entertainment business is focused on the business aspects over the entertainment ones. Selling a movie or TV show is no different to them than selling a t-shirt or an action figure. They’ll happily strip out music from a production to reduce their costs an increase their profits just as they would use cheaper fabric or flimsier plastic. I imagine they would happily replace the actors and the writers on a re-release if they could. At least one of the issues raised by the WGA strongly suggests they’d happily replace them the first time around if they could.
It depends on what kind of contracts that musicians unions have with studios… they might not have them at all. And other unions aren’t involved in this strike, either - DGA, who settled with AMPTP nor IATSE…
Neil is very good at not calling people dumb asses when they should be… I doubt Harlan would have been so polite and patient with such a person. Maybe that’s why he posted the video by Ellison?
No-one should have a more privileged life as a result of being clever and creative.
I’ll admit that this is something I struggle with somewhat. Not the specific nonsense above, but rather why some work merits recurring payment (royalties, residuals, etc.) and others don’t. For most of my career, I have contributed in some way to producing a product that is essentially replicated infinitely for free, but I am only paid a salary. It’s not a perfect analog, but I could see how it could lead to feelings of resentment towards those who receive recurring payment for their work. I think it helps to remember a few things:
The number of people who are able to live comfortably from this type of income is very low.
The number who live luxuriously is even lower.
The business side of the entertainment industry gets paid for every copy of a movie, song, book, etc. Why shouldn’t those that actually produced it?
There are only two classes under Capitalism: The working class and the Capitalist class.
It only benefits the Capitalist class for members of the working class to be at odds with each other.
If we lived under an economic system where people’s needs were being met, most of these issues would be moot.
I hope the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are successful. It could help unions and unionization efforts in other industries. I discovered earlier this year that the film industry is actually dwarfed in size (measured in revenue) by the video game industry, which has very little, if any, unionization. Hopefully that will change. There are good signs.
