The situation of Netflix continues to get worse day after day. On this occasion we are not talking about the loss of subscribers, but of a payment of $ 42 million to several writers , this after losing a judgment against the writers’ guild of America (WGA for its acronym in English ).

It all started with a recent arbitration with the guild, which forced Netflix to disburse $ 850 thousand dollars in waste to Eric Heisserer, writer of bird box, as well as $ 350 thousand in interest, giving a total of $ 1.2 million dollars . This was what Meredith Stiehm said, president of the Writers Guild of America:

Netflix argued that WGA should accept a poor formula that the company negotiated with DGA and SAG-AFTRA. After an audience, however, a referee determined differently: that the license rate should have been greater than the gross budget of the film.

The next MBA negotiation of 2023 challenges us to address the hurry of the industry for using the growth of the transmission model to depress the wages and working conditions of the Hollywood talent. We hope that writers and all Hollywood workers receive their fair part of the value we create together.

Although in the case of Bird Box there is only talk of $ 1.2 million dollars, it was ruled that Netflix titles writers must be paid the same level of license fees as the pay service for third-party titles. This means that the sentence applies to a total of 139 original Netflix films.

Thus, the 216 writers of those films are online to receive a total of $ 42 million in unpaid waste. As if that were not enough, The guild also seeks additional $ 13 million in interest , which means that affected writers could receive a total of $ 64 million in waste after the WGA share.

This is the consequence of several Netflix decisions to pay writers less. The streaming company began producing films written by members of the WGA in 2016, but the original compensation of the guild only covered the presentations in the movies of the films. When these tapes are licensed or premiered in other markets, waste must be paid on that income. However, Netflix negotiated new agreements with SAG-AFTRA and DGA that allowed them to pay significantly lower residuals , something that was trying to negotiate with the writers’ guild of America. However, and as we saw, this did not have positive results.

In related issues, these are the premieres of Netflix in August. Similarly, we already know when breaking bad will go on this platform.

Editor’s note:

This is a result of Netflix’s bad practices. $ 42 million is not little money, especially during the complicated situation that the company is experiencing. I hope this is a lesson that writers are needed to pay what is owed, and not seek any way to reduce their salaries.

Will
Vía: IG