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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."
Send in 6 to negotiate. That cylon seems to get her way most of the time, for some reason.
The article is talking about "webisodes" - 3-minute promotional mini-episodes you can get off the net - not BSG itself.
I'm waiting for the DVD, like the last 2-1/2 seasons. Much more fun to watch it all in a couple of sittings.
FTA: "NBC Universal, the studio behind "Battlestar," refused to pay residuals or credit the writers of these "Webisodes," claiming they're promotional materials. So "Battlestar" executive producer Ron Moore said he wouldn't deliver any more of them, including the 10 that were already in the can."
10 refers to the Webisodes, not to the episodes of Season 3 running on SciFi itself.
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.
You can see 'em here
.avi's
http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/video/
Or go find them on bittorrent as
(which is what I did)
(it's not like the writers are getting residuals anyways)
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
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 give Baltar 1 hour before he caves in and the situation is "resolved."
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
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....
Considering they are free, it seems nobody from outside the North American mainland can view them. I tried last week and got stopped because it located my IP. What's the point when a determined person can get round the block anyway and then dump them on a P2P network and in the process create that avenue for your future non-american customers?
Jonathanjk.com
I'm sure that everyone got paid for the time they put in, just like anyone else with a normal job. This boils down to residuals, or a share of the profits from distribution. Imagine that you are a programmer working on some application. You get paid for the time you put in, but 99% of the time, it doesn't matter wether the company sells 1 copy or 1 million, you don't see a cut of the profits. The entertainment industry is different, since most of the jobs are short term contract work, the actors/writers/directors etc get paid x amount specified in their contract and they rely on residuals to get them thru the times when they don't have work.
In some ways it is hard to feel for either side, The networks are the typical bloated-big-company-screw-the-little-guy types and the creatives whine about not getting more money beyond what they were already paid.(I'd love to see the Photoshop team decide that they aren't going to deliver CS3 unless Adobe gives them a cut of each sale...)
Ultimately this is going to come to a head and the creatives will figure out that they don't need the networks to distribute their content
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.
It can also be a matter of contract rights.
IE Sci-Fi doesn't have the overseas contract rights for he show.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
NOTICE: Possible Spoilers
Apparently they got tired of spending so much money on computer graphics, so almost all of the new shows are set in a muddy field, with some tents and some junk. It's turned into a freaking soap opera about mommies and babies. Fuck that shit, I want to see some nuclear explosions in space!
OK. First of all, Galactica is a drama set in space. It's not a scifi kill-fest. The awesome explosions and Viper vs. Raider battles are incidental to the plot. The show gets all its acclaim and awards (and most of its audience) from the script and acting. Without that, the show won't have lasted into season 2.
And the current situation on the planet is symbolically critical - recall the line last week when Tyrol said "We're going home" in reference to reassembling the fleet, when the whole first 2 seasons they wanted a planet to call home, they've found out (both before and during the occupation) that maybe there's more to a new home than soil. Also, you'll be getting your wish in Exodus Part 2, I bet, with 2 battlestars vs. 5 basestars, and 1000 resistance fighters versus the Cylons on the ground.
Back on topic: The webisodes were short (a total of about 15 minutes of content), but they are vital to introducing Duck and Jammer and their choices. Seeing the webisodes helps with the Duck-related scenes in "Occupation", and Jammer's conflicts in the other two episodes. It also really reveals the full irony of Tyrol's conversation with Jammer about Gaeta. That will echo through to at least Episode 5 "Collaborators".
She's no 7 (of 9) either.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
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.
Yeah I'm aware of this and thought it was most likely, but I still wanted to mention it. I also want to mention that the internet sucks, not in a post dot.com bubble ironic sort of way but as a fact. I think we have to accept the fact that the internet isn't going to change the world, but the internet is being changed by the world to suit their existing business models. Its the reason why iTunes isn't 1 store but 21 stores.
Jonathanjk.com
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.
Personally, I am enjoying the humans play the role of rebels/insurgents versus the militarily superior cylons... strapping bombs on their chest on suicide missions, but at the same time those captured have sacks put on their heads just like prisoners in Iraq / Guantanamo. Watching the conflicts within number 6 and number 8 (Sharon) who have been "exposed" to humans is also heady stuff. With plot twists like these, who cares about blowing up stuff in space?
Please do not blaspheme the internet. It has changed everything, its just that the rest of the entire world has not kept up with frenetic pace set by our beloved internet.
Like, you know, how all content, all entertainment, all information, is now freely available to everyone everywhere, which is so tantalizingly similar to the abundant economies predicted by our favorite sci-fi shows (now, by the way, freely available for free download) that we cannot restrain ourselves from making ever more boastful predictions covering things we know nothing about apart from our certainty that they will be fundamentally changed by the internet. Like in the 90s only we're right this time.
I do not care what you say. The internet is not owned by the same corporations that own everything else. The packets that come to my house are not carried over wires owned by a profit seeking ISP, carried at their whim rather than mine. By virtue of my birth into this world I have earned an inalienable right to these packets and any other packets I might want to receive or send. The internet is not dependent on routers and switches owned by telcos that can decide to allow or reject packets based on their specific business needs or the constraints placed on them by the governments that allow them to operate. No one can sue me for doing something wrong, like piracy or theft of information or slander, as long as I am using the internet because the internet is a playground of limitless freedom that no man, no government, can ever hold back. Not even a nation of millions.
If you don't recognize that the internet has ushered in a new era of free, and freedom, then you way off in the weeds. We disciples praying at the altar of the internet are leaving you behind, old man.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State