Op-Ed: Wanna end this writers’ strike mess before you all die of old age?

What’s wrong with this situation is mutual loss. This LA Times story is the background, it’s pretty much spelled out in the article that neither side is budging. The writers’ approach is that some studios might be more inclined than others to go to work on the spreadsheets, which is all that’s required to settle. The LA Times doesn’t think it’ll work. That’s a pretty good analysis of a template of positions which has rarely achieved anything without much grief in the past, either. As a person who’s done practical mediation, I can tell you now that any methodology which is based on adding more unacceptable conditions won’t work. I don’t know what they’re teaching these guys in high school, but stop doing it. This needs to be resolved, not turned into an institution. Naturally, as a writer, I tend to sympathize with them, but I’m not entirely impressed with the writers’ logic. I’m far less than impressed with the studios’ penny-pinching in a growing revenue base, but there’s a bigger principle involved here. This is a very inefficient process for dealing with property rights for both sides. The “rights” scenario is like a disease, in any industry it touches. The whole process of rights-bitching is invariably just screwing up new product, for both parties. Every time this issue comes up, in whatever form, it costs a fortune, and achieves no more than an agreement about a situation that could have been anticipated. It’s not that hard to get an all purpose “rights” contract organized. The copyright law definitions of the writers’ products are perfectly clear, and that’s all that needs to be addressed. This is no-brainer territory. Rights work like any other property. They can be bought, sold, transferred, or used as a basis for residuals. We’re not talking about some major new concept. As a matter of fact, in some cases any use of copyright material is covered by the default provisions of copyright law. Unless otherwise defined, ownership reverts to the copyright holder. That shouldn’t be news to anyone, but it means “who owns what” isn’t in doubt. Also relevant is that contracts for intellectual property are between two parties, A and B. Unless C is a court, there’s no third party. The writer’s logic works to a point, on that basis. However- It’s in the writers’ interest to have a better business dynamic for sale of their materials. A “one size” approach could be bad business. Competing rates drive up prices. Standard rates do the exact opposite. From the studios’ perspective, a “one size” might contain costs, but it plays havoc with quality and who you can get. If you’re paying peanuts, you might be lucky to get a monkey, if there’s more peanuts available elsewhere because you stick to the “one size” approach. Let’s get this straight- There’s no comeback for a third party in a two party contract for any sort of property. You’d have to prove that one of the parties had a binding obligation to the third party. If not, take an aspirin. The Alliance could wind up committing to a self destructive pattern, losing out on major legal points, in any dispute over copyright law. From there to oblivion is a small step, and it doesn’t help the studios to back a loser. Nor does it improve any future bargaining positions. For the writers, that’s a potential Pyrrhic victory, because it could shrink the market by reducing outlays as the studios get defensive with unknown quantities of payments. If it’s a copyright, just leave it at that, and do the normal formulae. Just for the record, it’s spurious at best to try to claim that copyright law doesn’t apply across the board, because it always has. This dispute can be settled anytime with a few clicks on a computer. What sells and what doesn’t sell isn’t a matter of guesswork. Both sides would be well advised to get this Woodstock of Nitpicking out of the way and concentrate on the major money supply. ---------------- This article received an award from Digital Journal's Editorial Board for outstanding citizen journalism. Every Friday, Digital Journal profiles the top news stories from around the world.

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