this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
131 points (100.0% liked)

Ghazi

679 readers
3 users here now

A community for progressive issues, social justice and LGBT+ causes in media, gaming, entertainment and tech.

Official replacement for Reddit's r/GamerGhazi

Content should be articles, video essays, podcasts about topics relevant to the forum. No memes, single images or tweets/toots/... please!

Community rules:

Be respectful and civil with each other. Don't be a jerk. There is a real human being on the other side of your screen. See also the Blahaj.Zone Community Rules

No bigotry of any kind allowed. Making racist, sexist, trans-/homo-/queerphobic, otherwise demeaning and hateful comments is not ok. Disabilities and mental illnesses are not to be used as insults and should not be part of your comment unless speaking of your own or absolutely relevant.

No gatekeeping and being rude to people who don't agree with you. Leave “gamer” stereotypes out of your comment (e.g. sexless, neck bearded, teenaged, basement-dwelling, etc). Don't compare people to animals, or otherwise deny their humanity. Even if you think someone is the worst human on the planet, do not wish death or harm upon them.

No "justice porn". Posts regarding legal action and similar is allowed, but celebrating someone being harmed is not.

Contrarianism for its own sake is unnecessary and not welcome.

No planning operations, no brigading, no doxxing or similar activities allowed.

Absolutely no defense of GamerGate and other right-wing harassment campaigns, no TERFs and transphobia, racism, dismissing of war crimes and praise of fascists. This includes “JAQing off”, intentionally asking leading questions while pretending to be a neutral party. This also applies to other forms of authoritarianism and authoritarian or criminal actions by liberal or leftist governments.

NSFW threads, such as ones discussing erotic art, pornography and sex work, must be tagged as such.

Moderators can take action even if none of the rules above are broken.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Article by Ethan Drogin, one of the writers on Netflix' "Suits" who points out that the residuals he received for the show are minuscule and in no way match the long-lasting success of "Suits"

all 22 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (8 children)

$259.71: That’s how much the “Suits” episode I wrote, “Identity Crisis,” earned last quarter in streaming residuals. All together, NBCUniversal paid the six original “Suits” writers less than $3,000 last quarter to stream our 11 Season 1 episodes on two platforms.

I'd like to highlight last quarter. How much did they earn up to that quarter?

Imagine a carpenter receiving money as long as the customer eats at the table...

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It depends on expectations. If the carpenter is paid a good hourly wage to produce tables, regardless of whether the table gets sold, he wouldn't expect anything.

But if he gets paid a small amount with the promise of more depending on how much the tables sell for at auction, he would certainly be angry if he found out that his tables were very popular, going for hundreds of thousands of dollars per table, and he was given a few extra hundred dollars total.

Though even in the first case, if the carpenter found out his tables were popular and being sold for huge amounts of money, he might not ask for more for previous tables, but wouldn't be out of line to ask for a raise!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well said. I only wanted to highlight that the article is written as if the author wasn't enjoying a good wage.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What "good wage" may be can differ a great deal, but what a "fair wage" is not that much. As it stands Netflix gets to pocket pretty much all of the money by themselves and no matter how you try to argue, it's not fair that Netflix' C-suite can reap a huge financial windfall while everybody else involved with a show gets morsels in comparison.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago

Imagine a carpenter receiving money as long as the customer eats at the table...

A truly terrible analogy in 2023. Everyone knows that there's a difference between physical products and reproductions. Hell even before the Internet you should know better.

How about this?: Imagine an author receiving money as long as new copies of their book sold.

Ridiculous, right?? The publisher should get all that money! /s

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Imagine an author receiving money as long as people but their books...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Imagine a carpenter receiving money as long as the customer eats at the table...

So you are saying that no-one, including the broadcasters/streamers should make any money from the shows once they have been initially shown? Or is it just the writers that shouldn't get continued income?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Indeed, the subscription nature of digital media is wrong.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I don't have an opinion on whether the writers are receiving a fair shake or not, but royalty deals can also apply to physical goods.

If I own a patent and you have a business that would like to produce my invention we can enter into a sale of the patent, enter into a yearly fix rate license, or enter into a deal that includes a lump sum and/or royalty.

It depends on how each party sees the revenue developing and striking a deal that seems to work for both parties. The royalty model doesn't work for the buyer in the table example, thus the buyer only accepts a one time fee and transfer of ownership.

Mind you, plenty of people enter into other types of contracts: leases, layaways, etc. And they pay a different fee structure than those buying outright. A writer could enter into a lump sum contract, but would likely demand a higher fee to cover future earnings. This isn't in the best interests of the studio, as they have no idea how successful the show will be.

I'll also point out that car manufacturers are literally moving to annual fees for certain features. Was it BMW with heated seats? Could pay monthly, yearly, or lifetime access. Same amount of work for BMW, but wildly different payment models.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I think the important factor is how much the episode is making other people who contributed less

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm with you. And no I don't think authors or songwriters, or any artist should receive payments in perpetuity for a work they were already paid for. I don't get paid in perpetuity for my work, why should they?

Before you try to explain why, just remember that most artists don't make any money, they do it because they enjoy it. Making money from it should be a nice side effect, not the entire point.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Language in contracts must be updated to include streaming. Residuals relying on old school syndication rules makes zero sense in a world without cable/major network channels. All the language is still built on shows like Seinfeld/NCIS