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The 2008 Writers Guild Strike Changed Hollywood
The 2008 strike ushered in the Age of Reality TV. Once the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike ends, will AI be writing scripts?
Last week, the Writers Guild of America voted to strike after failing to reach an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
At issue is the problem of fairly compensating writers and creators when so much of what they produce is 1.) streamed online and, increasingly, 2.) sent by the original publisher into syndication within a subsidiary to avoid paying further royalties.
Hollywood has since been plunged into an uproar and the battle lines are being firmly drawn.
“Solidarity, Doggystyle: Snoop Dogg Voices Support for Writers Strike, Slams Streaming Model,” reported Rolling Stone on May 9, 2023. “The rapper/entrepreneur questioned why creatives in music, movies, and TV aren’t seeing millions from their work — ‘That shit don’t make sense to me.’”
“We need to figure that out the same way the writers are figuring out…the writers are striking because streaming, they can’t get paid,” the famous rapper said. “Because, when it’s on the platform, it’s not like in the box office. In the box office, if it does all these numbers, you may get an up — ‘Oh, it did this many, here’s another check.’ But on streaming, you…