WGA collects $11 million in payments from Nickelodeon ...

WGA collects $11 million in payments from Nickelodeon ...

The Writers Guild of America, West, says it has collected $11 million in residual payments and interest for writers who work on Nickelodeon shows.

In an email to members Thursday, guild President Chris Keyser and Executive Director David Young said Nickelodeon had agreed to distribute the money owed to writers.

The guild had pursued arbitration claims against Nickelodeon alleging an "egregious, ongoing failure to pay residuals on a timely basis." This spring, the union had demanded the company post a multimillion bond to cover future residuals on its shows.

Since then, Viacom's Nickelodeon has worked with the guild to resolve the dispute on all 22 shows on which residuals were owed. Nickelodeon has paid writers on these shows more than $10 million in residuals and almost $1 million in interest.

"The last of this money is now being distributed. Just as important, Nickelodeon appears to have changed its practices and is currently making efforts to pay residuals on time,'' Keyser and Young wrote.

ON LOCATION: Where the cameras roll

"The Guild's Legal and Residuals departments achieved this result, powerfully supported by the showrunners and writers of the 22 Nick shows,'' they added. "Our strength as a Guild is derived from the willingness of writers to stand together to address these kinds of intolerable practices."

A Nicklelodeon spokesperson said: "We have the utmost respect and admiration for all of our writers, and have worked very hard with the WGA over the past months to ensure all residual payments have been made. As the Guild notes, we have now completely remedied the situation, and we look forward to a continued excellent working relationship with our writers."

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Judge Rules DGA Foreign Levies Reports Acceptable But Lawyer Claims They Don't '

Judge Rules DGA Foreign Levies Reports Acceptable But Lawyer Claims They Don't '

The court finds that the guild is complying with a settlement agreement, dismissing plaintiff counsel's argument that more information should be required.

A California judge ruled Wednesday that the Directors Guild is complying with a 2008 settlement agreement requiring it to report certain data related to foreign royalties, brushing aside the motion of a lawyer who told the court that the DGA reports were all but incomprehensible.
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"We've engaged consultants," Neville Johnson of Johnson & Johnson LLP told The Hollywood Reporter. "But they say they can't make sense (of the DGA reports)." Johnson represents a class of non-DGA members who are entitled to receive foreign royalties paid out by the guild.
The DGA countered in a statement that it "has distributed more than $121 million in foreign levies, including over $13 million to more than 3,400 non-members." The guild added, "It was a hard-fought effort to attain these funds and we are very proud of our efforts."
Johnson's position is that even if the DGA is complying with the letter of the settlement agreement, it wasn't in tune with the spirit of the pact, and he urged Judge John Wiley to require more. The judge declined, notwithstanding Johnson's argument that since he maintained jurisdiction over the case, he should ensure that the information provided be clear and adequate.
But Wiley – in Johnson's words – said that "if you make a settlement agreement, that's all you get."
The judge's denial of Johnson's motion was "with prejudice," meaning that it can't be refiled. Johnson can, however, appeal, and said his office was deciding whether to do so. He has 60 days to decide and said it was likely that he would.
Foreign royalties are complex. Collection societies in certain countries collect the sums based on various government regulations, then remit a portion of the U.S.-destined payments to the DGA, WGA and SAG for payment to individual "authors" (i.e., writers and directors) and performers.
Another portion of the collected monies is paid to the U.S. studios or producers, who under U.S. law and customary entertainment contracts are deemed the authors of the movies, television shows and other audiovisual works at issue. The fact that monies are split between the studios and the individuals is a consequence of balancing the contrasting U.S. and foreign definitions of "author" and was arrived at in agreements between the guilds and studios in the early 1990s.
According to a geographic breakdown prepared by the WGA, 51 percent of the $147.5 million it's collected in the last 20 years came from Germany. Next, with 8 percent to 11 percent each, were France, Argentina, Switzerland and Spain. No other territory constituted more than 3 percent of the total.
More information can be found on the DGA, SAG-AFTRA and WGA West websites. The SAG-AFTRA royalties collected as of mid-2011 totaled under $21 million, or less than one-fifth of what the WGA and DGA collected. That's due in part to the fact that fewer countries provide for performers to receive foreign royalties than do for authors.
Foreign royalties are distinct from foreign residuals. The latter are computed according to the terms of the collective bargaining agreements between the unions and studios. As confusing as residuals – and especially foreign residuals – can be, foreign royalties are even murkier.
Whether the unions even have the right to collect such royalties, let alone on behalf of non-members and/or for movies and TV shows that aren't under their jurisdiction, was the subject of three class-action lawsuits – one against each union – filed in the mid-2000s.
Those lawsuits were settled, with the unions permitted to make collections and disbursements, subject to reporting. But for various reasons, the reporting requirements ended up being different for each union, notwithstanding the fact that all three lawsuits were assigned to the same L.A. Superior Court judge, Carl West. None of them is particularly detailed, however.
West ultimately retired and was succeeded on the case by Wiley. Johnson said that Wednesday's hearing was Wiley's first on the case and attributed his decision in part to not having been on the three cases for the more than half-decade that West was.
Johnson also failed to persuade the judge to award additional attorneys fees beyond what he had already received. Johnson told THR that he might seek to withdraw from the case as a result and have new counsel appointed.

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Writers Guild Foundation Elects Barbara Corday as New President...

The Foundation, a charitable organization legally separate from the WGA, also elected other officers and trustees.

Barbara Corday has been elected president of the Writers Guild Foundation, the organization announced today. Her term is two years.

The Foundation is a charitable corporation separate from the WGAw and is funded by voluntary contributions from writers and others. Among its programs are a library located at WGA headquarters, seminars and conferences, a writing program for military veterans, and a screenwriting workshop program in disadvantaged high schools.

Coincidentally, the WGA West announced its officer and board candidates today. The two announcements are unrelated.
Corday co-created the television series Cagney & Lacey and was the first woman to be president of a major television production entity (Columbia Pictures Television) and first to be head of a network's prime-time programming (CBS). Most recently she was chair of Film and Television production at the USC School of Cinema and Television. Corday replaces Chris Brancato, who has served the maximum number of terms.

New officers elected were Holly Goldberg Sloan as VP of Development, Elias Davis as Treasurer and Ligiah Villalobos as Secretary. Tom Schulman continues as Executive Vice-President and Dan Petrie Jr. continues as VP Programs.

The board also elected seven new trustees to the board for three year terms: publicist Craig Bankey, screenwriter Lowell Ganz, agent Nancy Josephson, and television writer-producers Marta Kauffman, Bill Lawrence, Jan Oxenberg and David Shore.

In addition to the officers, the continuing trustees are: Neal Baer, Barbara Benedek, Chris Brancato, Diane English, Jonathan Estrin, Kevin Falls, Seth Freeman, Dean Hargrove, Charlie Hauck, Robert Nelson Jacobs, Georgia Jeffries, Jay Kogen, Jim Kouf, Peter Lefcourt, Andrew Marlowe, Shonda Rhimes, Howard A. Rodman, Robin Swicord, Matthew Weiner, Larry Wilmore and John Sacret Young.

Most trustees are members of the WGA West.

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WGA directors send contract to members for a vote...

The Writers Guild of America board of directors has uanimously endorsed a proposed three-year contract for its 12,000 members.

The guild said Friday that directors had voted to send the tentative deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to members for a ratification vote, which will be conducted by mail and also at membership meetings next month.

The proposed contract negotiated on Sunday includes a 20% increase in pay-TV residuals, a 2% increase in annual wage rates and an increase in employer pension contributions to 7.5% from 6%, according a letter the WGA sent to its 12,000 members Sunday night. Negotiations to replace the current contract, which expires May 1, began March 3.

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Industry News: WGA, AMPTP to Begin Negotiations Thursday...

Contract talks with a broad agenda will begin with less than two months before the current agreement expires.

The WGA and AMPTP have finally made a date: They'll begin contract negotiations Thursday, according to a joint statement released Tuesday. No other information was disclosed.

The current guild agreement expires in two months, on May 1.
SAG, AFTRA and the DGA have already negotiated and ratified new agreements, which take effect when their existing agreements expire June 30. The Writers Guild held off setting a date, operating on a strategy that emphasizes late negotiations as a source of strength.
Early last month, the WGA membership overwhelmingly ratified a proposed "Pattern of Demands." That document, a wide-ranging outline of negotiating priorities, does not contain specific proposals, dollars or percentages -- nor angry rhetoric -- but seeks various monetary increases plus significant changes in the script development process.
A cover note that was sent out in December with the Pattern of Demands said there was "no … single galvanizing issue" in this negotiating cycle. That signals that a strike is extremely unlikely, but whether the WGA will end up working without a new contract for a period after the current one expires remains a possibility. That happened in the 2001 and 2004 negotiating cycles.
Among the guild's goals are increases in a variety of areas: minimums, employer pension and health contributions, new-media residuals and residuals for made for pay and made for basic cable programs. SAG/AFTRA and the DGA got 2% annual wage bumps and a one-time 1.5% increase in P&H. It's assumed the WGA will end up with the same numbers.
In addition, SAG and AFTRA received a slight improvement in made for new-media programming, and the DGA obtained a higher wage tier in made for basic cable.
The fact that neither union achieved improvements in both these areas suggests that it would be difficult for the WGA to do so either.
In a "Contract 2011 Bulletin" sent to members last fall, the guild detailed four new-media deal points, none of which the other unions achieved. They were: shortening the 17/24-day free initial streaming window; increasing ad-supported streaming residuals; reviewing the rules for clips used in new media; and addressing limitations in coverage of made-for-new media programs.
The other unions also accepted a shift from first-class air travel to new rules favoring business class and coach. The industry practice of "pattern bargaining," in which the deals for each of the above-the-line unions mirror each other in many respects, suggests that the WGA will end up with the same revisions. However, since writers travel to locations less frequently than do actors or directors, the shift will result in less discomfort for the WGA – but also less savings for the studios.
The development issues the guild identified in its Pattern of Demands could result in contentious negotiations. These include "prewrites" – in which writers are asked to prepare uncompensated treatments – and sweepstakes pitching.
The latter is a practice in which a studio asks multiple writers to pitch their approaches to a movie idea proposed by the studio. The studio may then ask a number of those writers to come back for meetings repeatedly, using the process as an unpaid way of having numerous writers refine the studio's initial idea. In the end, the studio hires – and pays for – just one writer (at least until it orders rewrites).
Creative rights matters such as sweepstakes pitching may be particularly touchy, since the issues are not just monetary. That means that studios' creative management, in addition to business executives, will have to weigh in on the studios' negotiating posture.
Another guild sore point: the prevalence of one-step deals, rather than the multi-step deals that predated the 2007-08 strike and the troubled economy. Writers dislike one-step deals not only because the money is less (unless the writer is then hired to do revisions), but also because it gives the writer only one shot to get it right.
Another money issue is a demand for an increase in home video residuals. The unions dislike the quarter-century-old formula so much that the WGA called it "the hated DVD formula" in the last round of negotiations. That's because 80% of DVD revenue is swept off the table before the residual is even calculated.
The studios respond that they need that revenue to offset the losses they contend most films incur in theatrical release. Ironically, and worrisome to the studios, the home video business itself has declined precipitously in the past five years as consumers moved to Netflix, Redbox and various streaming options.
How hard the WGA will push on home video remains to be seen. In the last negotiating cycle, the AMPTP labeled the proposal a "roadblock" and the WGA ultimately withdrew it. An increase is unlikely.
The WGA also wants to limit option periods for renewal of employment on episodic series. That means that networks and producers would have to decide more quickly whether to pick up a writer for the next season, reducing management's flexibility and increasing writers'.
Also included in the Pattern of Demands is a proposal for animation jurisdiction. This was another AMPTP "roadblock" in the past cycle, and the WGA dropped the demand. Notably, the president of the guild at that time was Patric Verrone, an animation writer.
Another jurisdictional proposal -- in motion capture -- is somewhat confusing, because motion capture is a production process, not a script category.
The outlined increase in made for pay residuals is a WGA perennial. The guild's formula in this area is less lucrative than the DGA's or SAG/AFTRA's because of missteps by the WGA in the early 1980s. The studios have agreed to incremental increases a number of times, but the structure of the formula has not changed.
Unknown is how the Pattern of Demands compares with the initial demands made by SAG/AFTRA and the DGA. Those unions don't issue such a document and usually keep their opening moves confidential.
The WGA negotiating committee is co-chaired by John Bowman and Billy Ray and includes Alfredo Barrios, Andrew Bergman, John Brancato, Patti Carr, Jonathan Fernandez, David A. Goodman, Chip Johannessen, Damon Lindelof, Ron Moore, Jeremy Pikser, Shawn Ryan, Thania St. John, Stephen Schiff and Mike Scully.

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