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The tentative contract agreement with the networks and studios was just announced after six days of formal negotiations. the LAT reports that the new three-year contract offers directors "a better deal than what studios had initially offered writers, including higher royalties for online sales of their movies and TV shows." No details yet on what that means, but if the agreement is anything close to enhancing Internet compensation the writers will be under enormous pressure to work out a similar deal. Here's more from the NYT:
The accord achieves a breakthrough for union members by doubling compensation for television shows that are downloaded via the Internet, and raising by 80 percent the rate for movie downloads. In addition, directors — for the first time — will be compensated for advertising-supported streaming of shows. Over all, the agreement was designed to reflect the directors’ belief, bolstered by an independent study of industry economics, that digital media will render the companies a negligible amount of revenue during the life of the contract, and will become significant only after 2010. Key provisions of the contract assure that its formulas governing new media will not become a precedent in the next negotiation, when the economic prospects from new delivery forms are expected to be much clearer. The deal, in effect, postpones a fight that writers are waging now.
"Two words describe this agreement -- groundbreaking and substantial," said Gil Cates, chair of the DGA's Negotiations Committee. "The gains in this contract for directors and their teams are extraordinary -- and there are no rollbacks of any kind." Here's the press release that lays out the details.
United Hollywood, the blog that was started up by writers, had this to say:
We're trying to get our hands on the deal document, which will be much more detailed than the deal summary below. There may be exceptions and special provisions (like the 100,000 unit breakpoint for television downloads and the 50,000 unit breakpoint for feature film downloads) that need to be examined more carefully. In short, we gotta get a look at all the fine print. The next few days will no doubt be full of furious debate and discussion over every aspect of this deal. We'll continue updating as we get more, which we expect will be very soon. But the issues here are too important to rush to a conclusion about.
Edited post
Mark Lacter created the LA Biz Observed blog in 2006. He posted
until the day before his death on Nov. 13, 2013.