Slashdot Mirror
Battlestar Galactica 'Webisodes' Conflict Brewing
nebaz writes "MSNBC has an article saying that there is tension between NBC and Ron Moore and team about the royalties on the 'Webisodes' of Battlestar Galactica. The episodes have been seized by NBC, balking at Ron Moore's refusal to produce any more episodes, due to compensation issues."
How many episodes of season 3 have been produced so far? Please please tell me it's more than 10.
Send in 6 to negotiate. That cylon seems to get her way most of the time, for some reason.
This is NOT the actual BSG series! Sci-Fi will keep screening all of BSG. These referred to the webisodes that were online just before Season 3 was released, and narrated the formation of the the resistance.
This is an industry-wide battle between creatives and network/studio execs that goes way beyond this one show. Most of the unions completely messed up years ago negotiating residuals for the home markets (VHS and DVDs especially), so there's a LOT of resistence to giving away the farm this time. (Many writers, for example, in movie animation get zero residuals.) Unfortunately, there's a lot of momentum and precedents that resulted from the previous mistakes, so it's kind of an uphill battle for the writers, directors, actors guilds. The future gets even more complicated when writers, actors, and other artists work directly for the Internet, for phones, for games, etc. and when "reality" shows claim to not have writers at all or won't allow their writers to organize. Plus there's the issue of residuals for older content that wasn't even imagined when the shows were produced in the first place.
So yeah, it's a mess, and there's gonna be conflict in this arena for a while.
NBC Universal, the studio behind "Battlestar," refused to pay residuals or credit the writers of these "Webisodes," claiming they're promotional materials.
not pay writers? sheet. if these people worked for nbc, would nbc not pay them for the time during their work day they wrote?
"you get no pay, peon, that was your break!"see how they feel if you lift the webisodes an puth them on your own site.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I wonder if this is related or similar to what happened to the Jericho webisodes...there was one, corresponding to the pilot, but now the CBS website has been re-worked to remove all references to it.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
These things are clearly more than commericals and the actors should be paid. Heck, even actors in commericals get paid.
Obviously, you're not a writer.
I am. And if I write something, I get paid for it. End of story.
If you RTFA, you might note that the network is claiming it doesn't have to pay for the webisodes because they're "promotional materials," as though that somehow means that the content just magically appeared. The network is trying to get something for nothing, and they're giving the content creators - without whom the network is nothing - the shaft.
Frak!
-CR
"So is the BSD licence even more 'free' (than GPLv2)? Yes. Unquestionably." --Linus Torvalds (TinyURL.com/2vugzl)
I give Baltar 1 hour before he caves in and the situation is "resolved."
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
I am in a union. I wish the truth was even a fraction of the way closer to your assessment.
i wonder how much of an issue this would be if this weren't such a good show/season for scifi.e ason_three_premieres_with_strong_ratings.shtml
"The show saw bigger gains in the viewers age 25 to 54 demographic (seven percent), and viewers 18 to 49 (4 percent)." http://www.gateworld.net/galactica/news/2006/10/s
seems like everyone was cool with the arrangement last month. or else, why would the first three have gone up without a problem?
I know some people must have seen this comming, but you'd think they'd act before this became such a big issue. As time goes on, I am sure some new method of distributing stuff or new forms of media will eventually cause this problem again. If they didn't think of this being a problem all those years ago, what lies down the road in 10, 20 years time?
why can't I get residuals for the applicaton I wrote last year? it was a script and I wrote it.....
Whatever BSG's writers want, give it to them. They're far better than the writers on nearly every other one of your shows, and is one of the highlights of a network this is otherwise deservedly in last place among the big four.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I write music for some of these shows and let me tell you, you have no idea how deep the well goes. Most of us get ZERO royalties per download off of shows on itunes. ASCAP/BMI refuses to track them on the internet. Thus, as the viewing audience shifts, they are trying to squeeze us out. It's amazing really.
Marc Graboff, West Coast president of NBC Universal TV, was torn in half by a conflicted Victoria's Secret model.
DC Comics pulled a similar stunt on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons with Watchmen badges ("pins" to the American audience). The badges were sold in comic stores and used the iconic designs that Moore had envisioned and Gibbons had illustrated. DC Comics happily cashed the proceeds but did not send any of the profits to Moore and Gibbons since these were "promotional items." Alan Moore did not react well to this....
Seems to me as much creative energy went into creating those webisodes as did the full TV episodes (albeit 3 minutes at a time). It's not like the webisodes are just clips of scenes from other episodes all strung together into a 30 second commercial... they are all unique content, things you can't get from just watching TV episodes.
I wonder if the actors got paid for the time they spent shooting those "promotions." Or makeup, costume, cameramen, the list goes on.
luckily FTA the dispute appears to be limited to "webisodes" the producers are refusing to make any more of the webisodes until the compensation issue is resolved. it does not appear to impact that actual episodes of the TV series however.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
Since the web is likely to be the future of television this is more of setting a standard for compensation for web based content. If they get cut out now they may be in the future if and when broadcast and potentially cable goes away. The viewers might not notice a big difference but if content switches to technically a web based broadcast the creative people may get cut out. It's happened a lot in the past. One of the classic examples were old movie stars. Shirley Temples mother was known as one of the toughest negoiators but she couldn't have predicted TV and Temple never got a dime off any of the films shown on TV inpsite of tens of millions being made from their broadcast. 20 years ago no one would have predicted web broadcasts. The internet was new so browsers and email were still essentially in the future. Who can say what is possible in twenty more years. There's even talk about redoing the internet itself since it was never designed for this much traffic. That could be another openning to renegoiate. The suits are the ones trying to screw everyone over. The artists are mostly trying to pay rent.
It's amazing how much ineptitude seems to be rising to the top at Sci-Fi and NBC Universal.
Bonnie Hammer cancels Farscape, a show with a dedicated fan base, because she thinks that the serialized plotline is too hard for the fans to follow. She makes this decision just as the Internet is starting to become a good way for fans who miss an episode to keep up with the series (iTMS started months later, and it should have been obvious to anyone that television and movies would eventually make their way to iTunes). She replaces it with the single-season flop Tremors: The Series, and is rewarded for her poor judgment by being promoted to President of USA Network and Sci-Fi Channel.
Mark Stern shoots the company in the foot by cancelling Stargate SG-1 (another show with a dedicated fan base) despite strong backing from its production company, MGM. To add insult to injury, Stern refuses to let MGM court other TV networks for a new home for SG-1. This is combined with the decision to separate the SG-1 franchise from its follower, Battlestar Galactica. Shortly thereafter, the nature of the synergy between Stargate and BSG is revealed, as BSG's season premiere ratings were substantially lower than last season's premiere. MGM plans to release new SG-1 content direct to DVD, and they may end up producing a full Season 11 for iTunes and DVD. NBC Universal won't see a dime from those projects.
Sci-Fi Channel is also diluting their brand by airing professional wrestling, despite it already being carried on USA, in an apparent effort to mimic Spike TV, which at least runs five hours of Star Trek every weekday.
Now, Marc Graboff gets on the BSG production team's bad side by screwing them out of residuals, and tries to justify it by blaming it all on the BSG production team.
And finally, NBC decides to yank dramas and comedies from the 8pm time slot because they're "too expensive" compared to reality shows. Never mind that NBC rode the top of the rating charts for years on the backs of shows like Seinfeld and Friends (and, later in the evening, ER and Law & Order). It's almost as if NBC decided that being in last place with crappy-but-cheap shows was better than being top dog, and if they put Deal or No Deal on five nights a week, last place is where they'll end up.
Today there was also a big story about how NBC Universal is laying off about 5% of their workforce. I wonder if they're taking suggestions for whom to axe.
She's no 7 (of 9) either.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
I am seeing a lot of comments here with the commenter's saying things along the lines of "The webisodes are free anyway, so what is the issue with residuals? Who cares?" This is an amazingly short sided view.
Yes, the webisodes and similar media may be shown free at the moment, but that is a temporary thing at best. Say a year from now the show gets exported to another country and instead of showing the webisodes for free there, they decide to sell them through whatever the local equivalent of the iTunes store is at 50 cents a pop. I know all sorts of people that would happily pay for 2-5 minute chunks of extra content for their favourite series during the off season.
Or, (and this is very likely), the season 3 DVD releases of Battlestar Galactica include the webisodes as 'bonus content' the same way that movie DVDs include the trailers. And the studios will say 'hell, no one gets paid extra for including the trailers with the DVD, they're promotional material, so why should the actors/writers get paid extra for it?' At the same time, you can get that it will be advertised as the DVD set including the 'bonus episode worth of content' that it really is. The writers get paid for the episodes on that DVD, so why don't they deserve to get paid for the webisodes?
any one with minimal imagination can come up with other ways that content like this can be used or changed in ways that we are not seeing yet but that cross lines. If it doesn't happen with the Battlestar Galactica content,it will happen tot he next popular series that is inventive enough to reach out to the fans in new ways with new content. In a lot of ways, we are lucky that it is happening with an example that is clear cut in many ways in favour of the creative team and with people who are willing to fight. Otherwise, these types of rights and incentives might disappeared before anyone recognised they existed, and that would be the end of this type of content.
Here is the bottom line: If the company is making money off of the webisodes then the writers deserve their piece under union rules. However, if they are given away for free then they are indeed promotional materials and as such the writers/actors don't deserve any extra cash. For example, should the writers get paid for each time a BSG commercial airs? No, its just promotion for the show for which they do get paid.
I got the webisodes for free, did you guys pay? Really, I don't know.
I don't get it... I watched all 10 webisodes for this show, and it pretty much led right up to the season premiere. So were they pulled or not?
Hopefully the writers will get the money they're due... and I hope these webisodes get included on the eventual DVD release, because they're very well done.
That's what they get for calling them "webisodes".
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
Some fucking space battles!
So far this season it's all "Let's go start some shit up and blow up our own hovels - that'll show the Cylons!", or whatnot.
(admittedly, I may not have paid particular attention to the specifics of TFA)
sic transit gloria mundi
The sort of clumsy handling of sci-fi programs you're talking about is, unfortunately, endemic in the TV industry. Good shows get cancelled (the original Star Trek and The Vistor come to mind right away). Other shows get so little in the way of resources that they become ridiculous (Lost in Space and (I'm sorry) the original Galactica).
Face it. TV doesn't "get" science fiction. These corporations are run by corporate suits with MBA's and degrees in marketing and have no soul and no imagination. These shows are nothing but product to them. Nevermind that Star Trek did more for encouraging research in a bunch of fields of science. It's no accident that the generation raised on Trek created PC's, PDA's, cell phones, and other technology. I'm reading now about the (real) experiments in bending microwaves (a cloaking device), matter teleportation, and energy weapons.
Clearly, to those of us in the tech industry and the sciences, these shows are NOT silly, mindless, childish or merely a "product." They are the source of many inspirations. We care about these shows.
TV doesn't. And the probably never will.
Perhaps a consortium of web geeks should approach Moore et al and offer them the services of a dedicated streaming server and a loyal fanbase. Maybe we can help good content make the jump FROM TV to the 'net.
What are the Google guys doing? They've got the money...and advertisers...this could actually work!
Nitewing '98
Everything works...in theory.
Go to Youtube.com and search for "galactica webisode" and you'll find they've all been posted. If you use the Firefox browser, you can install the Videodownloader extension and that will let you save youtube videos to your harddrive. So say we all.
Other networks are in the same fight. I wrote about this two months ago when Variety hit on it and again just now on Newsvine. NBC, ABC, and CBS are all in it with the Guild right now and it's going to come to a head when the contract is up next year.
http://about.me/paultenny
The WGA recognizes that web delivery is the future of the content creation industry. No one is sure yet how increasing broadband access and a generation of entertainment consumers weaned on BitTorrent is going to affect the commercial arts, but you can bet that web delivery, either for-pay, sponsored, or free, is going to be a huge part of the new business model. WGA screwed up once a already by failing to forsee how the home video/DVD market was going to become the major revenue source for movie studios. (Aside: Some clueless pundits - usually conservatives railing against liberal Hollywood - have pointed to falling box office receipts as signs that the studios are somehow dying, but the studios are doing better than ever. They've simply changed their business model.) It's absolutely in their interests to come on strong on the the subject of webisodes.
If CBS had any brains, they'd offer Moore complete creative control over the Star Trek franchise to leave BSG when his contract with NBC is up. DS9 is the only Star Trek series that really holds up well after all these years, and Moore was an assistant producer on that (and the writer of some of its greatest episodes); and there he was constrained by the Berman junta.
What a shallow argument, what if the suits decide that really, the season premiere episode is really just promotional content for the entire season? What if they offer up that episode as a free download on the iTunes Store (as a good bit of pilots, and season premieres seem to be these days).
Shouldn't the writers get their residuals for those too?
Bottom line, if you want promotional content, hiring an advertising firm, if you're creating something regardless of length or what you decide to do with it, you should still be paying those creative folks their proper dues.
Error 407 - No creative sig found
You're very much correct about these being very easily classified as promotional materials. Strictly speaking - they are. The problem is that is exactly what will prevent this sort of new style of content from being created by anyone who isn't trying to sell you something. BSG tries something different with their show and they get screwed by it. They get a clear message from the network bosses - "Go ahead and come up with these new ways to produce content - just don't expect to get paid for it" (okay, they got paid, just not as much as they were expecting) This war over one's fair share of the pile of cash on the table is pretty much inevitable, and we should be surprised that its holding back development of new forms of content. If NBC wanted to REALLY tweak the BSG folks, they should string all the 'webisodes' together, air them on TV along with commercials. Call it a 'commer-sode' and refuse to pay residuals.
Battlestar Galactica 'Webisodes' Conflict Brewing
I think the conflict is already at hand. However, I'm not sure I agree with the actions of the staff of the webisodes. The Internet is a completely different medium and playing selfish little baby on this hurts the show the and may shorten the length of your employment.
If I were NBC, I'd commission a new crew to make a new series of webisodes and tell the other folks where to stick it. That's just me.
One day the toilets of the world will rise up... And I'm going to nuke them.
Talk about disrespect to the rest of the world.
I love this show. It pains me to see that Corporate America is once again trying to ruin something good. Ron Moore & team have a good thing going right now with the new Battlestar, and if they were replaced with Cylon imposter writers by NBC I think it would negatively impact viewing and I think that new writers would skew the current story. If all they are asking for is credit and compensation, what's the big deal? Its not as if NBC is not profiting. I'm no communist or socialist, but shit...share the wealth, NBC! Pay the people for their work!
Funny, that's how I feel about geeks with technical degrees.
For example, should the writers get paid for each time a BSG commercial airs? No, its just promotion for the show for which they do get paid.
But it's not the same. Commercials are excerpts from the larger episodes, so they did get paid for making the episodes. As I understand it, webisodes are not excerpts from the episodes, but are filler around them and produced in addition to the episodes.
As it stands, they were done for free...no renumeration. Shouldn't the people involved in the making of the webisodes get paid for making them in the first place?
The only thing that might be a hitch is if this material was taped as part of the episodes, but later cut out for whatever reason (episode length, etc). This is similar to the "deleted scenes" stuff that appears as bonus material on DVDs. If so, the people involved may have already been compensated for them. From my reading of the article, that isn't the case, but we're not seeing both sides of the argument either.
Guys, I've seen all the episodes of the show including the miniseries and listened to almost all of the podcasts (I intentioanlly keep a few episodes behind on those to avoid being spoiled) and I gotta say that the production quality of the (not to mention the visual quality) of the websisodes was very poor and they did little to further the show except for giving "Duck" a little substance behind his motivation to be a suicide bomber
just my one penny
I don't think that they are trying to provide commentary on the current situation in Iraq. From what I can recall of the podcasts from the first two episodes, Ron Moore stated that they weren't trying to make to compare the US in Iraq to the Cylons on New Caprica - not conciously, anyway.
Granted, the Iraq situation is in the news here in the US a lot, so it is quite possible that the writers did so without realizing it.
I don't think it's nearly as simple as that. No one is arguing that the writers should be paid every time a commercial shows a scene from an episode they've already been paid for. The situation here is someone created something original and gave it away for free in one context. Now NBC wants to come along and say that gives them the right to use it for free any way they see fit and in any context they can think of.
Isn't that the same thing NBC claims is illegal when I download one of they're freely broadcast television shows off the Internet and watch it on my portable video player instead?
Sheesh
They DID get paid for the normal commercials (it was content taken from the show for which they were paid under union rules).
You didn't pay to see the webisodes? (BTW -the person who thought up that name should be shot immediately)
I paid to view them... most people that viewed them did. You paid via the time they took from you to show you the ads on the website and the ones shown BEFORE the webisode.
Yeah, but who outside the US would want to watch them? Nobody in France speaks English anyway, and Iraq doesn't have internet anymore. Are there any other people outside the US?
Now that's disrespectful to the rest of the world.
I'd say that there's another WGA strike brewing. The question is what will the fallout of the strike be? Most likely, for the duration of the strike, the Big Four will switch primarily to reality shows (including in the place of dramas that will be off the air). If this is the case, will the Big Four decide to make the switch perminant because it really drops their bottom line; or will there finally be sweet, sweet, sweet oversaturation and this damnedable Reality TV show fad dissapear to, say, 4-5 shows total on all the broadcast networks (Survivor, Cops, Amazing Race, Rock Star, and Last Comic Standing, for example).
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
You make many valid points, but the original BSG did not suffer due to lack of resources. At the time it was made, it was the most expensive TV series ever made, costing ~$1M per episode. It went downhill after the first handfull of episodes due to poor writing.
*** Quantum Mechanics: The Dreams of Which Stuff is Made ***
So why wasn't Series 2 anything like as well-written as Series 1? Series 2 relies on plot-twists whereas Series one has much better storytelling build up, character interaction, charm etc.
I'm assuming a change of writers but would like to know for sure.
The sad thing is, this could ultimately mean the cancellation of BSG.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I don't get the Sci-Fi channel so I buy them off iTunes a day or two later.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
One of the major problems of the original BG was the strict adherence to the "running in space" plot. They had to get more and more outrageous to keep the plot fresh. Not that they succeeded, but they were hampered by poor dialog, bad acting, and the inability to move away from the core plot.
I don't think they intend the occupation of New Caprica to be like Iraq, with the Cylons as the US. If you see that parallel, perhaps it is more in you than in the show.
Not everything on TV is commentary on US policy.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Because it's easier to dismiss it, rather than engage your brain and enjoy it?
It's the same way people dismiss any idea that is different from their own. Slap a handy label on it, place it in the same box as everything else with that label, and ignore it.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Well, technically, all shows on NBC, CBS, etc, are free promotional materials to get people to watch the real paying content, the commercials. So should no-one get paid anything, except those who produce commercials?
The whole situation is brain-bending.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Almost all content is promotional, Most TV shows exist, from the TV Networks point of view, to get people to watch commercials, which is their 'real' product (the one they get paid for).
Minus much of PBS, NPR, paid downloads, DVD sales, and Pay Per View; where money is solicited directly from the consumers.
Don't be ridiculous. Everyone else in the world can see them here.
Sci-fi discusses ideas. The evening news discusses events. Reality shows discuss people.
Perhaps the TV execs just understand reality shows better than sci-fi. Chalk up another one to the soulless minions of (television) orthodoxy.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
I am sure there are excellent writers on the show as I have thoroughly enjoyed it for 2 years, but whomever they are allowing to inject politics into season 3 should be fired.
Have you been watching BSG at all?
The show is full of politics -- stealing elections, the issue of abortion, torturing enemy detainees, religion & religious extremism, "terrorism" and everything associated with it (armed resistance, suicide bombings, etc.)
Seriously, this show has been full of political commentary (allegories, whatever you want to call it) from the start.
It's part of what makes the show so compelling.
Whether or not you agree with the message.... it's part of what makes the show great. Bringing issues like these to the forefront and forcing people to face them, when most people would rather cover their eyes and ears and pretend its not there.
If there was a celebrity deathmatch between 6 and 7 of 9 who would win? Or would there be a 69?? Whoa, freudian slip I think...
Oops, how did this get here?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I'd hear the word "fun" about BSG, the most dreary depressing bleak stuff on tv at the moment.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating