Contract negotiations between film and television writers and their employers got under way this week, with each side wasting no time criticizing the other's proposal as unfair, unrealistic and out of touch. Negotiators for the Writers Guild of America are seeking a bigger slice of the revenue studios get from distributing movies and TV shows downloaded from the Internet. They're also proposing doubling payments on profits made from DVD sales and providing union pay and benefits to writers working in reality television and on basic cable shows. At the end of talks Monday, the parties issued terse statements on their Web sites underscoring the contentious nature of the negotiations.
See "Writers, studios clash as Hollywood labor talks get under way", Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle, July 16, 2007