'Suits' Was Streamed For 3 Billion Minutes on Netflix and the Writers Were Collectively Paid $3,000
stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to 
nofilmschool.com
The sorry state of streaming residuals shows why SAG and the WGA are striking.
stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to
Better they uploaded it on torrent and asked for donations
When are people going to understand that what you know, what you can do, value, truth, integrity and love have absolutely nothing to do with how much you get paid? The world makes much more sense if you stop assuming being a good person makes you rich. The opposite is true, being a psychopath is far more profitable.
If we placed the appropriate value on the people who reduced suffering the most, there would be statues of Edward Jenner everywhere and he would have been the richest person in the world.
There is an inverse relation between the wage a job pays and the contribution to society that the job makes, with a few exceptions like doctors. The highest paying jobs are very often parasites on society. This seems to originate from the Calvinist work ethic where meaningful work is its own reward.
~ paraphrased from David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs
Most doctors aren't paid enough either, and the supply of doctors is kept low to keep the price of care high, the cost of becoming a doctor is inflated by, among other things, the amount of residency programs available is limited making them very expensive to get into.
The whole thing is engineered to extract wealth, not functionally deliver a supply of goods and services to those who do work.
Even then... Elective plastic surgeons make far more than virologists or ER techs. Radiologists can earn more by owning an MRI machine and charging for its use than by billing to interpret the machine's results. Hospital administrators at big clinics earn more than staff physicians. Insurance company admins can earn more than doctors. Shareholders in medical firms earn most of all.
The fact that I had to look up who Edward Jenner was, and that I (unfortunately) immediately know who Kylie or Bruce Jenner is (to use the same last name), cynically proves your point.
Nurses and firemen should drive lambos, bankers should eat scraps. But alas, human nature rewards greed, but expects humanity.
Gross. Writers should be paid fairly.*
Edit: Previously read "Shame on Neflix". See thoughtful reply below.
I'm watching suits right now... On Netflix.
I'd heard that the Duchess of Sussex used to be an actress, but I'd never seen her in anything. It was a little strange at first to see her playing a paralegal.
For me it was a little strange seeing an unknown actress playing a paralegal become some popular public figure in the UK.
You mean c-tier acres Meghan Markle?
Me too, as I type this. Getting to the end of season 3 for the first time!
Then you're a part of the problem. Supporting billionaire corporations making stockholders richer.
and no royalties? $3000, would be few, even for only one professional writer.
What a weird measure of time for a show. It's not a song. Why not use something more suitable, like views?
Edit: it's 50 million hours. If each episode is about an hour long, then that's about 50 million views. If there are 10 episodes per season, then that's 5 million viewers per season.
It’s semantics, but the equivalent for a song would be plays. I think the problem with using views or plays for a metric like this is that they don’t account for people that take in the entire piece of media. It considers people that accidentally click an episode and then close it after some seconds, and people who watch an episode from start to finish, to be the same. One of those people are going to see a lot more ads than the other, thus making the company more money. Just my hypothesis tho.
"It's Free Money" ~ Studio Executives
IP Laws need to change: Melancholy Elephants is a great Hugo Award winning short story about this train of thought.
Warning: unpopular opinion here.
From the article:
So, I am an engineer/scientist. Products that I have developed/contributed to development are used by billions of people. Most likely you, the reader of this comment are using it right now, because some of the products I worked on are telecom products, that are widely used to transfer information.
The amount of secondary payouts I receive is EXACTLY ZERO.
My honest question is, why those writers should be any different? They should be paid when they make their products, according to the contract they signed. But why many think they entitled to something more?
And no, I do not think that argument "but it is difficult work, it is not constant" works here. There are lots of difficult, non-constant, seasonal, whatever jobs there that pay even less.
You get what you demand, and what you bargain for, which is why they are now on strike. You valued your knowledge, experience, and expertise in telcom, in different ways, and less over the long term, than workers in the entertainment industry, who, for the majority of the entertainment industry's existence, have been taken advantage of by the producers of that entertainment. You decided to work for a salary and benefits, and got yours upfront, their industry works a different way as a result of historically predatory entertainment industry practices.
Like others have said, this is the wrong mentality. Instead of asking "why should they get it when I don't?", You should simply be asking "why don't I get it?"
Turning us against each other is how the ruling elite stay in power. 💪
What's he's saying is those ruling class shouldn't be getting it either because it's a silly concept lol.
Road crews don't get paid from tolls. Power plants don't get paid beaucoup. Etc. Etc.
The root issue is the company profiting endlessly or simply not paying appropriate wages. IP law absolutely needs to change.
Melancholy Elephants is a great Hugo Award winning short story about this train of thought.
I worked on products that many Lemmy users are using to read and post. I don't expect residuals because that's not how my industry was built / ever worked.
Writers are in an industry that previously paid them every time their work made money. That's the difference.
Well what jobs are you thinking about?
"unskilled labour" is a myth.
How so?
As someone who works in the film and TV industry, let me go ahead and say whatever you do in America, whatever industry: you're undervalued, underpaid, and your wealthy executives are getting fat on your hard work while you starve.
As someone in America I'm not undervalued, underpaid, or starving. Maybe you should stick to speaking for your own industry.
Keep licking that boot.
I don't have to, I can afford my own
Found the executive
"I'm not struggling so therefore no one else is struggling"
Are you for fucking real?
That's exactly the myopic thinking that put us in this situation, so you shouldn't be surprised to find this person.
Seeing how writing absolutely nosedived after 2-3 seasons, I find it hard to sympathize with them for ruining one of my favorite shows.
Didn’t the writers get paid a salary during the production?
yes, they sure did, but not enough, because at the time they accepted their last labor agreement, they were being paid when the studios and producers were selling their work on in other distribution avenues covered by that agreement, and now they studios are selling them on in other avenues of distribution which weren't covered by that agreement, and aren't compensating them for it.
It's really not that difficult of a concept. It's all in the employment agreement you work under.
I can get behind fair wages, but I don’t understand residuals. You were paid to do a job, but you also expect a cut of whatever future revenue it might achieve?
If you don't understand residuals, like owning stocks, which continue to pay out on future worth through dividends, when their values go up, I'd suggest you pick up a book.
If it's in the contract then yes.
If you're wondering why it's in the contract, this is very common in lots of different business types.
Up front, there may not be a desire to make a huge investment. What if isn't a success? So you tell whoever is making , "hey, we'll pay you measely dollars now to make it, and pay you percent of money that comes in for it down the road." This way you can invest a smaller amount up front ensuring the thing gets made, but everyone involved gets a cut based on the future success.
Since the success/amount made isn't determined in a one-time deal, you pay out the shares of the success over time: aka residuals.
I mean why not? If your labour helped create the thing, and it's still generating value, why not receive a share of the value? Especially when higher up execs who might not have even worked on it at all are making bank from it.
You licking boots or not? It's correct information but sounds like you're defending it.