WGA strike

[BrightShinyGirl]

It’s huge news here in LA, so I’m kind of surprised there’s not a thread for it already. The other guilds are joining in and it’s basically shut the industry down.

I read a great story on Twitter about a PA refusing to cross the picket line to deliver the lunches he was fetching for the studio execs. He passed out all the food to the picketers instead of letting it go to waste.

 

[ll74]

The story is a victory lap for the right wing on Twitter.

The power of unions is awesome

 

[Dribble]

From what little I have heard, this is about protecting their business from AI. If true...I fully support their effort.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

From what little I have heard, this is about protecting their business from AI. If true...I fully support their effort.

It’s about that and residuals from streaming.

 

[Dribble]

It’s about that and residuals from streaming.

I am OK with that too.

 

[John_von_Neumann]

More power to 'em, but there's a very real possibility Hollywood is an aging dinosaur in the face of AI-generated media. It's happening to commercial artists and copywriters, it's only a matter of time before it happens to script writers and entire studios.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

More power to 'em, but there's a very real possibility Hollywood is an aging dinosaur in the face of AI-generated media. It's happening to commercial artists and copywriters, it's only a matter of time before it happens to script writers and entire studios.

All the AI-generated stuff I’ve seen is pretty bad. Past tech revolutions have been driven by porn. A bot generating hot pictures or stories would have a huge market. The fact that no one has released one suggests the tech isn’t there.

 

[Holy_Seduction]

I’m kind of surprised there’s not a thread for it already…

And I’m king of glad you started it, Bright, Shiny One.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/05/06/writ-m06.pdf

On the way forward…

‘..,writers must turn to the only social force capable of bringing them to their knees: the working class. In order to avoid a repeat of the 2007-2008 strike, which ended with a company-friendly contract that has led to the current struggle, writers must develop independent rank-and-file committees. These committees, united with the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), are independent of the Democratic Party and the trade union apparatus and will fight to broaden the struggle, not only throughout the country but the world.’

All power and authority to the IWA-RFC!

 

[John_von_Neumann]

All the AI-generated stuff I’ve seen is pretty bad. Past tech revolutions have been driven by porn. A bot generating hot pictures or stories would have a huge market. The fact that no one has released one suggests the tech isn’t there.

The tech is advancing at a fast pace. The latest image-generating models from Stability.AI, MidJourney, and OpenAI generate fairly convincing photoreal images. Heck, an AI generated image won a digital art contest in Colorado last year, with none of the judges suspecting the image was created by an AI. In just the last couple months we've seen video generating AIs become public; voice cloning can be done in seconds. Even the most advanced video generating AIs currently produce videos that look like something out of a fever dream, but give it a year or two.

I don't know about studios, but individuals have been using AI-generated "people" for porn. Lots of this stuff happens on Reddit. There was a story just recently about scammers using AI-generated stuff posting from Reddit accounts.

 

[BluesDriver66]

Getting real tired of these massive billion dollar corporations pleading poverty that they can't pay their line workers living wages while at the same time paying their executives tens to hundreds of millions per year. Are you really telling me just one of these coked up, starlet and intern fuckers who turn out the shittiest products that industry has produced in decades, have more responsibility than the governors of New York and California combined? Their salaries are way out of whack for the duties performed and just another glaring indication of wealth and income disparity in modern corrupt capitalism.

U.S. CEO-to-worker compensation ratio of top firms 1965-2021 ​

Published by Statista Research Department, Jan 30, 2023
In 2021, it was estimated that the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio was 398.8 in the United States. This indicates that, on average, CEOs received about 398.8 times the annual average salary of production and nonsupervisory workers in the key industry of their firm.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/261463/ceo-to-worker-compensation-ratio-of-top-firms-in-the-us/



https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Media-Executives-Compensation.jpg

 

[Dribble]

A woman relieved a phone call. Mom...a bunch of bad guys have me...send money...Yada Yada. The culprits used social media posts the girl made with her voice...and AI'd the message.

This is simply not technology we need. Fakes wanna be fakes for money. That will work out well

 

[Unblemished]

Wages, residuals and working conditions are the big deals here; everyone fixates on the text generators (they’re not AI, not really) because they’re the hot new thing, but I think only one of the 20+ demands focuses on them. And in the immediate term, the issue with them is

1. The writers think the studios are gonna churn out a bunch of shit scripts via GPT or whatever, make the writers edit them into something useful (which could be more hassle than writing from scratch) and then pay them editing rates, and

2. They don’t want their own writing being fed back into the machines. I can understand not wanting your own hard work being used to fuel a plagiarism engine so they can try to replace you with a knockoff.

 

[butters]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...1&cvid=98059910adcf4fc394dd9c786c31bc32&ei=36

After 148 days, leaders of the Writers Guild of America have unanimously voted to lift its strike, allowing writers to return to work Wednesday, Sept. 27.

"The WGAW Board and WGAE Council also voted unanimously to lift the restraining order and end the strike as of 12:01 am PT/3:01 am ET on Wednesday, September 27th. This allows writers to return to work during the ratification process, but does not affect the membership's right to make a final determination on contract approval," The union announced on Tuesday.

 

[ll74]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...1&cvid=98059910adcf4fc394dd9c786c31bc32&ei=36

Im glad they were able to work out an agreement.

 

[VinnyVeritas]

"The dual Hollywood writers and actors strikes have reportedly dealt a blow to Democrat fundraising — including President Joe Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign.

"Some local campaigns blame the industry for causing them to fall as much as 25 percent short of projections, according to a Politico report. Jeffrey Katzenberg, who serves as Biden’s campaign co-chair, has avoided the Los Angeles fundraising circuit entirely out of respect for striking workers."

Maybe they should put the blame where it belongs: Joe...

"But with Biden’s popularity at historic lows as Americas face out-of-control inflation and an illegal alien crisis that is spiraling into complete chaos, it remains to be seen if Hollywood stars will be willing to lend their public support to such a toxic candidate."



https://www.breitbart.com/entertain...ions-dry-up-when-the-cameras-stopped-rolling/

 

[BabyBoomer50s]

And now Governor Newsom vetoes bill allowing striking workers to receive unemployment pay.

 

[Chernosoth]

I don't see a writers' strike making much difference in the crap that Hollywood makes now. Corporate crap is still corporate crap. If TV/movie writers abandon Hollywood and work only for indie producers or produce their own works, they may have a future. Meanwhile the media giants may become extinct dinosaurs.

And classics. Grab a play or something off a shelf, that's the writing mostly done. Shakespeare did a lot of crude jokes and gags that haven't been updated or have been mostly edited out, so putting them back in would and adding a few more would suit the current market.

 

[BabyBoomer50s]

There was a positive development last week that has received little media attention. California Governor Newsom vetoed a bill that would have paid unemployment benefits to striking workers.

This was a major blow to the state’s powerful labor left and it drew a swift and angry retort from Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, head of the California Labor Federation. Newsom cited the massive deficit in CA’s unemployment insurance program as the reason for his veto. Presidential ambitions might have been a factor as well. Whatever the reason, it was the right thing to do for California taxpayers.

 

[Unblemished]

That’s a shame. Didn’t stop the strikers from achieving a total victory over the greedy bastards trying to stiff them, though.

 

[Sean Renaud]

There was a positive development last week that has received little media attention. California Governor Newsom vetoed a bill that would have paid unemployment benefits to striking workers.

This was a major blow to the state’s powerful labor left and it drew a swift and angry retort from Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, head of the California Labor Federation. Newsom cited the massive deficit in CA’s unemployment insurance program as the reason for his veto. Presidential ambitions might have been a factor as well. Whatever the reason, it was the right thing to do for California taxpayers.

Yeah that was a major fuck up on the part of Newsom. This is the kind of stuff that will kill any chance he might have had at being nominated over Biden next year. Its not clear how much support he lost with with that but I wager once people know about it it will sink him.

 

[BabyBoomer50s]

Yeah that was a major fuck up on the part of Newsom. This is the kind of stuff that will kill any chance he might have had at being nominated over Biden next year. Its not clear how much support he lost with with that but I wager once people know about it it will sink him.

He’s not given any indication that he intends to challenge Biden for the nomination. It’s entirely possible that he’s posturing for a shot at the nomination if Biden has to drop out for health issues however. In that case, his competitors would likely come from other governors, members of Congress, and Kamala Harris.

There’s a reason he’s been appearing on Sean Hannity’s program and it’s not to win the hearts and minds of progressives. He’s trying to position himself as a moderate Democrat. He’s currently known as a very liberal governor of a very liberal state. Paying unemployment benefits to striking workers would play well in deep blue California. Not so much in red and purple states.

 

[Sean Renaud]

He’s not given any indication that he intends to challenge Biden for the nomination. It’s entirely possible that he’s posturing for a shot at the nomination if Biden has to drop out for health issues however. In that case, his competitors would likely come from other governors, members of Congress, and Kamala Harris.

There’s a reason he’s been appearing on Sean Hannity’s program and it’s not to win the hearts and minds of progressives. He’s trying to position himself as a moderate Democrat. He’s currently known as a very liberal governor of a very liberal state. Paying unemployment benefits to striking workers would play well in deep blue California. Not so much in red and purple states.

Red states definitely not the handful of purple states it wouldn't make or break the deal. Besides when he was pretty much on the front lines of the LGBT marriage thing years back. Even if he couldn't get it done he'd likely try have congress push to codify abortion.

I don't think he has any real intention of running against Biden for a lot of reasons some of them political.

 

[cermin]

Writers Call Out WGA for Not Speaking Out in Support of Israel Following Hamas Attacks​

The open letter, signed by several writers, including Eli Roth, Jenji Kohan, Jerry Seinfeld and Amy Chozick, slammed the guild for remaining silent at this time.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/n...a-not-speaking-out-support-israel-1235618985/

 

[Sean Renaud]

What the hell does Israel one way or the other have anything to do with the WGA?