Screen Actors Guild holds the line on pay for Web shows

As Hollywood braces for what could be its second labor walkout in a year, the fundamental contract issue dividing the Screen Actors Guild and the major studios is what the future holds for online entertainment.

But it's what's happening now with online entertainment that could shape the outcome. Companies that make shows to be watched online are scaling back and laying off employees, making it more difficult for actors to make the case that the Internet is Hollywood's new frontier.

For months the sides have clashed over how actors should be paid in the digital era, especially when it comes to their appearances in programs created for the Internet. So few were surprised when last-ditch mediation efforts recently collapsed between SAG and the studios.

Although the Internet has yet to produce the online equivalent of a "CSI," SAG anticipates that one day programs created for the Web could be as big as those created for network television.

As a result, the guild wants actors who are hired on all online shows to work under a union contract, just as they are when they appear in conventional sitcoms or dramas.

Behind the union's hard line is the still-sore memory of how actors left money on the table in the early days of cable TV and home video by negotiating contracts that failed to anticipate the huge surge in growth of those businesses.

Read the rest of the story here.

-- Richard Verrier and Dawn C. Chmielewski

Photo: Actress Zoe Bell and writer Ed Brubaker horse around on the set of the Web show "Angel of Death." Credit: Crackle.com

Comments

[Dana Kaminski]

Don't take too much time to "anticipate". The internet is developing faster than anyone can do deep breathing, for all the anxiety that's going around, about all this. "Talent" really should be included in budgets, and revenue strategies. Isn't it that simple? (Especially when you factor in how important they are (!) ...in each production.

How is it possible that the movie studios all have assured their stockholders that they have the internet "sewn up" as THE entertainment venue, in the very near future--while at the same time, not including talent-pay? In this age of "change" , it appears somewhat out-of-step. More akin to Tom Wolfe's "Masters Of The Universe".

Is it really "bullying"? Is it "business-pushing-out the (weaker-positioned) artist"?

I am not sure, we all just have to wait and see.

When all this name calling and low-level behavior fades away, the "bottom-line" will remain. And be remembered. In terms of behavior. Time will tell, and the public, which is so much more informed, and quite concerned about fairness; will decide.

I does appear, though, thatsome of these people actually do believe whatever PR they make up.

Thanks for opportunity to comment.