Writer's Guild Strike of 2023 - Fuck these people

[Random Internet Person]

I can only wonder if things will go like this:

(start at 1:45)

 

[Historical Strelkov]

The reality is that everyone involved lost, and had nothing reasonable to offer.

 

[Your Starter for 10]

yeah ; i agree. Which is why them saying they got everything they wanted sounds like the exact opposite of true. So what the fuck did they get?

The only thing they won was that the studios won't contradict them when the writers say they won. All the pay and whatever bullshit will be exactly the same as before, with the possible exception of a couple of "writing consultants" or whatever on productions over a certain size, and possibly a minor increase in scale pay.

In other words they get a "moral" (lol, I am aware of the irony) victory and fuck all in fungible terms. The same thing that happens every time retards with zero leverage or talent negotiate with professionals who own everything.

Also I doubt the unemployment shit will have any effect on any of this since they are virtually all single event contracts or simply sellers of property. Except for staff writers or those retained for script fixing during productions. But hopefully I'm wrong on this part and it holds shit up longer.

 

[Alter Ego]

Writers get everything they wanted and all that happened was one big pissing contest. I’m starting to think this whole thing was an inside job from the start. Like the strike was scripted

Thought this was a pretty interesting, if rather too long article.

Hollywood’s Post-Writers Strike Reality



Passing along the archive, since Puck is a hard paywall.

Definitely worth keeping in mind that no matter what the actual deal entails, win or lose, the union leadership of a strike will always posture as having won. It's a face-saving measure directed at both the public and the union membership when there would otherwise be turmoil if failure is admitted. I remember this being the case with the '16-'17 SAG-AFTRA video game strike when the union acted like they won when they really didn't, particularly in failing to get a residual payment model that was the main crux of the strike.

So in this case, we have to wait and see what this WGA deal actually entails to get a real understanding of winners and losers. Sad to hear that there was at least a little caving from the studios regarding AI and mandatory staffing, though.

 

[BIG BILL HELL'S]

The thing that I find most interesting about all of this is that the new contract is allegedly only good for three years when at least the last two were for 10+ years. I'm guessing that the WGA thinks that they'll be in a stronger position to negotiate in 2026...? If that's the case, fucking LOL (LMAO, even!)

 

[HarveyMCR]

Inshallah, the only "good" resolution the studios and SWG could come to is the swift and brutal execution of both parties.

My bet is that the majority of the "victory" will be with AI. Like seriously, @ me in a couple days if I'm wrong.

Their main message is going to be "We stopped them from taking our jerbs with robots!!". Which is like, "no shit". The legal precedence for AI is that AI works are uncopyrightable. Studios don't want the next "I'M PICKLE RICK!!" or "Eat my shorts" to be written by AI and therefore fair game for non-studio merchandisers. Studios don't want 80% of their episodes' dialogue to be in the public domain. They want to have a high enough staffing rate that any lawsuit for public access to show/movie dialogue will be seen as infeasible.

They will of course say "Now some AI creations will be allowed in some works" (like autogenerated customized advertisements or nonsense text for background scenes) but that's exactly where studios want AI text. They don't want writers and animators spending their time coming up with slogans for fictional baseball teams that appear in one episode or a bullshit speech that the main characters attend and chat over. They want them spending their time on the stuff that makes the studio money. Not the fluff that just has to be there.

They're not going to get their victory with streaming bucks. Maybe they'll get a token deal like "We'll give the writers X dollars per month the show/movie is on streaming platforms, with Y incentives if they're featured", but this is going to equate to like 50 bucks a month extra.

I pray to God that this deal falls through. Not having to deal with Hollywood bullshit these past few months has been remarkably peaceful.

 

[Falcos_Commisar]

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Disappointed that the writers are coming back, but I await to see what the proposal says about AI and mandatory writing staff size. It's remarkable that the Yahoo article doesn't even hint at the latter, despite what I heard about it being a major point of contention.

The fact that they are being a bit.... circumspect about what exactly they "won" tells me they didn't get much and oh yeah enjoy 150 days of not making a dime from writing lol

 

[Alter Ego]

The thing that I find most interesting about all of this is that the new contract is allegedly only good for three years when at least the last two were for 10+ years. I'm guessing that the WGA thinks that they'll be in a stronger position to negotiate in 2026...? If that's the case, fucking LOL (LMAO, even!)

I noticed the three-year duration as well, and it immediately makes me suspect that any offer regarding AI is just a thrown bone the studios have in mind to withdraw upon the contract's expiration. In the meantime, the technology will continued to be developed and refined, the public will get used to AI-generated content (or perhaps even have increased demand for it), and studios will continue to do behind-the-scenes R&D with AI in the production workflow while waiting for that fateful day in 2026.

 

[HarveyMCR]

The thing that I find most interesting about all of this is that the new contract is allegedly only good for three years when at least the last two were for 10+ years. I'm guessing that the WGA thinks that they'll be in a stronger position to negotiate in 2026...? If that's the case, fucking LOL (LMAO, even!)

Mehmet my son. You have won against evil mouse. Will you...

1) Shore up your resources. Save your money and be ready for another showdown when the contract expires or...

2) Spend all your money on funkopops and finance a Tesla with your extra 5% salary bump.

(In this meme format)

 

[FamicomGorby]

Writers will learn nothing and hopefully got bent in the negotiations so they will cope, seethe, and dilate about how great a deal they got.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

I think the real lesson that was learned from this strike is noticing how many well known entertainers like Drew Barrymore and Bill Maher are very fickle when it comes to not wanting to rock the boat and trying to be on the “good side” of wealthier people who think they are the bottom of the victim class in a place like Hollywood.

No one is going to learn anything from this situation, and if they reached the deal for the WGA to come back because President Trump is running for re-election and might have a strong chance of actually winning it, then that is even more pathetic.

 

[Get the rope Macaulay!]

Inshallah, the only "good" resolution the studios and SWG could come to is the swift and brutal execution of both parties.

My bet is that the majority of the "victory" will be with AI. Like seriously, @ me in a couple days if I'm wrong.

Their main message is going to be "We stopped them from taking our jerbs with robots!!". Which is like, "no shit". The legal precedence for AI is that AI works are uncopyrightable. Studios don't want the next "I'M PICKLE RICK!!" or "Eat my shorts" to be written by AI and therefore fair game for non-studio merchandisers. Studios don't want 80% of their episodes' dialogue to be in the public domain. They want to have a high enough staffing rate that any lawsuit for public access to show/movie dialogue will be seen as infeasible.

They will of course say "Now some AI creations will be allowed in some works" (like autogenerated customized advertisements or nonsense text for background scenes) but that's exactly where studios want AI text. They don't want writers and animators spending their time coming up with slogans for fictional baseball teams that appear in one episode or a bullshit speech that the main characters attend and chat over. They want them spending their time on the stuff that makes the studio money. Not the fluff that just has to be there.

They're not going to get their victory with streaming bucks. Maybe they'll get a token deal like "We'll give the writers X dollars per month the show/movie is on streaming platforms, with Y incentives if they're featured", but this is going to equate to like 50 bucks a month extra.

I pray to God that this deal falls through. Not having to deal with Hollywood bullshit these past few months has been remarkably peaceful.

i love people repeating the whole "AI isn't people so it can't copyright" as if farm equipment hasn't managed to get around bans like that, and farm equipment is fucking stupid. Much like how a black man managed to join the KKK; it will be extremely easy to just have a guy pretend to be the AI for the handful of times its needed and beyond that just let the AI do its thing. In fact it'll be even easier because you can cast an actor and they'll be able to make sure not to piss off people with their writing takes like every other fag seems to. Imagine a writer that doesn't come off as a lolcow the second you look them up on social media.

If anything i'm sure you can come up with the argument that the person that designs the parameters and input for the AI is the technical owner of its works. the same way Celtx doesn't own the work you input into it despite it arguably doing the real work by making sure you follow the standards for screenwriting. The fact that you do have to input a prompt helps the argument as would if you build enough of the AI yourself and carefully chose what texts its trained on.

Honestly just the concept of banning "AI" is silly when you can literally use GPT on your phone and if you're savy enough just run your own private AI on your own private computer. This reminds me of the early seasons of The Amazing Race where people were pissed that a team was using the internet to buy airline tickets and people wanted that banned along with all the other now standard meta that the internet savy team did in the early seasons.

 

[HarveyMCR]

it will be extremely easy to just have a guy pretend to be the AI for the handful of times its needed and beyond that just let the AI do its thing. In fact it'll be even easier because you can cast an actor and they'll be able to make sure not to piss off people with their writing takes like every other fag seems to. Imagine a writer that doesn't come off as a lolcow the second you look them up on social media.

Don't get me wrong. I agree. I believe that in the future, either laws will change around AI copyright to accommodate, or industry will change to get around the laws. But we're not there yet. Nobody knows how congress will regulate, and for all the mouse knows, the agreement that congress will come to is "it's copyrightable if at least 51% of the work is made by humans". So right now they'll play "safe than sorry", give the writers the very generous terms they demand... and then toss it all out the door in 3 years when we know more about AI laws

 

[Dixieland Buckaroo]

The answer to AI copyright is you have a human editor/finisher. Derivative works are a grey area, but in general there needs to be substantial changes. So a human contributing substantial changes to an AI-generated first draft, would be copyrightable under the law today.

The AI "script" is 85% of the heavy lifting, and the editor goes in and finishes. Declare copyright as per normal, no one really needs to know how it's done. Hell, J. Michael Straczynski wrote the bulk of 5 seasons of Babylon 5 by himself, 30 years ago. It wouldn't be that unprecedented for a writer to do write whole seasons of a show (or nearly whole seasons, I know some of B5 was written by others). Unless it comes down to a lawsuit, no one would know that the copyright claim is potentially B.S.

 

[make_it_so]

They're not going to get their victory with streaming bucks. Maybe they'll get a token deal like "We'll give the writers X dollars per month the show/movie is on streaming platforms, with Y incentives if they're featured", but this is going to equate to like 50 bucks a month extra.

They were never going to get their victory with streaming bucks, because in order to do so would require the streaming services/studios to actually open up the books and show the actual viewership numbers. And the moment that happens, the reality of how fucking dismal the actual viewing numbers for streaming exclusive shows are would be known to everyone and the whole fucking streaming service house of cards would collapse.

 

[Mr. Zed da Robot Poon Fed]

Don't get me wrong. I agree. I believe that in the future, either laws will change around AI copyright to accommodate, or industry will change to get around the laws. But we're not there yet. Nobody knows how congress will regulate, and for all the mouse knows, the agreement that congress will come to is "it's copyrightable if at least 51% of the work is made by humans". So right now they'll play "safe than sorry", give the writers the very generous terms they demand... and then toss it all out the door in 3 years when we know more about AI laws

It's just so weird how this would operate, though.

Take voice actors, for example. You'll trademark AI of your voice, but not impersonations?

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

There is nothing that stops studios from pretending that AI writing was made by a human. Also if these retarded writer fucks had their way you wouldn't even be allowed to use a random sentence generator from the internet to get ideas. Fuck these hack goblins. An AI can easily replace them because they are that bad and unlike them AI is able to improve.

 

[Alter Ego]

LOL! I actually did when I saw this.

https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-members-approve-video-game-strike-authorization-vote-9832-yes-vote

https://archive.ph/l6ewj

SAG-AFTRA Members Approve Video Game Strike Authorization Vote With 98.32% Yes Vote​

News Updates​

September 25, 2023​

Members Signal Their Determination to Reach a Deal, as the Union Prepares to Resume Negotiations With Authorization in Hand​

SAG-AFTRA members have voted 98.32% in favor of a strike authorization on the Interactive Media Agreement that covers members’ work on video games. 34,687 members cast ballots, representing a voting percentage of 27.47% of eligible voters.

The strike authorization does not mean the union is calling a strike. SAG-AFTRA has been in Interactive Media Agreement negotiations with signatory video game companies (Activision Productions Inc, Blindlight LLC, Disney Character Voices Inc., Electronic Arts Productions Inc., Formosa Interactive LLC, Insomniac Games Inc., Epic Games, Take 2 Productions Inc., VoiceWorks Productions Inc., and WB Games Inc.) since October 2022. Throughout the negotiations, the companies have refused to offer acceptable terms on some of the issues most critical to our members, including wages that keep up with inflation, protections around exploitative uses of artificial intelligence, and basic safety precautions. The next bargaining session is scheduled for Sept. 26, 27 and 28, and we hope the added leverage of a successful strike authorization vote will compel the companies to make significant movement on critical issues where we are still far apart.

“It’s time for the video game companies to stop playing games and get serious about reaching an agreement on this contract,” said SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher. “The result of this vote shows our membership understands the existential nature of these negotiations, and that the time is now for these companies — which are making billions of dollars and paying their CEOs lavishly — to give our performers an agreement that keeps performing in video games as a viable career.”

“After five rounds of bargaining, it has become abundantly clear that the video game companies aren’t willing to meaningfully engage on the critical issues: compensation undercut by inflation, unregulated use of AI and safety,” said SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. “I remain hopeful that we will be able to reach an agreement that meets members’ needs, but our members are done being exploited, and if these corporations aren’t willing to offer a fair deal, our next stop will be the picket lines.”

“Between the exploitative uses of AI and lagging wages, those who work in video games are facing many of the same issues as those who work in film and television,” said Chief Contracts Officer Ray Rodriguez. “This strike authorization makes an emphatic statement that we must reach an agreement that will fairly compensate these talented performers, provide common-sense safety measures, and allow them to work with dignity. Our members’ livelihoods depend on it.”

The strike authorization vote was initiated on the unanimous recommendation of the SAG-AFTRA Interactive Media Agreement Negotiating Committee and National Board. Voting information was sent to eligible members on Sept. 5, and the final deadline to vote was today at 5 p.m. PT.

Find out more at sagaftra.org/videogames2023.

Keep in mind that THERE IS NO STRIKE YET while there are still negotiations going on through this week.

As I just mentioned, the last strike lasted for over a year and failed. SAG-AFTRA simply does not have the sway in the video game industry as it does in Hollywood. I believe there are two big reasons for this. First, the union makes up a smaller part of the VA workforce in video games with literally anyone able to perform an adequate task. Famously, the award-winning VA (including mocap) for the main character of the acclaimed game Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice was just a video editor who was originally intended to be a placeholder. Second, while some VAs may have a small fan following, they do not hold the level of celebrity stardom to sell games as actors do for movies and television. Video game buyers don't give a shit about who the voices are.

This time around, I also believe AI restriction to be a losing issue for VAs just as residual payment demands were the last time. Video game developers stand to gain even more from AI-generated audio dialogue and other vocals than filmmakers do.

 

[feral cat #6385]

"Hurr durr you're not putting your degree to good use"

Don't sweat it kid. Only about a quarter of people end up working in whatever field they majored in. It's not a big deal. 18 is waaay too early to decide what to do with your life.

I for one am very disappointed the strike is over. I hoped it would go on forever. I suppose its good for people who do blue collar shit on shows/movies so good for them I guess.

 

[Byte Doctor]

Lets see what kinda of fine print is hidden in the deals supposed contract. I wanna say their probably will be some scape goat clause for the big suits.