Will Screen Actors Strike Over Web Clips?
May 15th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: GeneralIt’s starting to look like members of the Screen Actors Guild may be heading for a strike like the recent Writers’ strike.
Studios have suspended talks with the Screen Actors Guild after three weeks of negotiations. One of the main reasons for the breakdown in talks is that actors balked at a studio proposal that would allow the studios to sell or license excerpts of TV shows and movies for use on the Internet, cellphones and other new-media devices without the actors’ consent.
“As an actor you want to control how your image is used and how studios get to exploit it,” SAG President Alan Rosenberg said. “We can’t erase 50 years of protections that we’ve had for our members.”
“The existing rules, and the enormous administrative burden created by those rules, prevents the entire industry from developing a lawful clips market,” said the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates for the studios. “Carrying over the existing bargaining terms . . . would not be practical or feasible.”
The disagreement fuels concerns that actors may stage a walkout when their current contract expires June 30.
The 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike lasted four months. The strike cost Los Angeles at least 380 million, with some estimates of the cost going as high as $2.1 billion. The strike is also credited with driving more viewers to Web video sites.
DO NOT STRIKE ! IT WILL ONLY HURT THE WORKING PEOPLE ,NOT THE STUDIOS. WORK OUT THE CONTRACTS WHILE WORKING ! DO NOT STRIKE ! LOTS OF FAMILES WERE HURT WHEN THE WRITERS HAD THIER STUPID WASTE.IT COST A LOT SMALL LOCAL COMPANIES ,DO NOT STRIKE !THINK ABOUT THE CALIFORINA ECONOMY. DO NOT STRIKE ! TG THE LEADMAN OF NUMBERS
Well as a writer I will support the actors strike, but a lot of actors are acting worse than the producers as they want to see the money before they show the art and craft. As more and more the actors act more like hookers with their agents acting like pimps and less and less like artists as the sign on to many horrible formula movies and avoid the risk and responsibility that the greats took in first reading material and then talking money. Now it is all show me the money, and in the end in many cases money wins out and art takes a dive.
Agents seem to act less and less like agents and more and more like used car salesman intent on gaming with no intent on moving the art or craft upward.