The Writers’ Guild of America strike, which started at the beginning of May, has officially ended as of today. The latest meeting between the WGA and the AMPTP has finally ended with a new tentative deal that presents some big gains for the writers. Deadline reports that the WGA has officially released a statement outlining the new deal that has been agreed upon with the big studios. The statement starts, “Today, your Negotiating Committee, the WGAW Board and WGAE Council all voted unanimously to recommend the agreement.”
The deal made with the WGA presented grand leaps in keeping AI in check, streaming residuals, and data transparency for the writers. Plus, it is being said that the same deal may also transfer over to the SAG-AFTRA negotiations when they take place. The controversial AI issues are now under certain regulations, “AI can’t write or rewrite literary material, and AI-generated material will not be considered source material.” In addition, “A writer can choose to use AI when performing writing services, if the company consents and provided that the writer follows applicable company policies, but the company can’t require the writer to use AI software (e.g., ChatGPT) when performing writing services.” The WGA also states that the deal “reserves the right to assert that exploitation of writers’ material to train AI is prohibited by MBA or other law.”
In regards to residuals, the WGA states, “The Guild negotiated a new residual based on viewership. Made-for HBSVOD series and films that are viewed by 20% or more of the service’s domestic subscribers in the first 90 days of release, or in the first 90 days in any subsequent exhibition year, get a bonus equal to 50% of the fixed domestic and foreign residual, with views calculated as hours streamed domestically of the season or film divided by runtime.”
With data transparency, the deal includes that “The Companies agree to provide the Guild, subject to a confidentiality agreement, the total number of hours streamed, both domestically and internationally, of self-produced high budget streaming programs (e.g., a Netflix original series). The Guild may share information with the membership in aggregated form.”
Projects are now back in development, but productions have yet to resume, except for the impending return of talk shows. However, the Actors’ strike marches on with their own negotiations hoping to similarly resolve soon as talks may start next week.