Pirates draw scribe fire
Valenti optimistic about Movielink
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"We are joined at the hip with the studios on this issue," Riskin said at a news conference Tuesday at WGAW headquarters. "If the public can download features for free, we are dead in the water."
Riskin asserted that piracy is a major threat to scribes' residual payments, which amounted to $181.5 million last year for the 8,500 WGAW members. Of that, $55.8 million came from residuals for features in the homevideo, DVD and pay TV formats.
"With 50% of members unemployed at any one time, residual payments are what get them through lean months," she said, adding that WGA members are growing increasingly concerned as they see or hear about pirated versions of their features.
For his part, Valenti continued to sound warnings of financial ruin for showbizzers if unauthorized Internet downloading of films -- currently estimated at 400,000 to 600,000 each day -- continues unabated through file-sharing sites.
That peril will increase exponentially, he emphasized, as the growth of broadband services makes downloading movie files simpler and less time-consuming in coming years.
"The fortunes of thousands of creative people depend on the protection of copyright," he declared, asserting that piracy takes away monies from members of the Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild of America and the Intl. Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.
Valenti offered a guardedly optimistic outlook for the fall launch of the Movielink Internet-based download system and said he wished it had been started earlier. "It's better late than never," he added.
Valenti also conceded that hackers will likely be able to defeat the system to at least a small degree.
"It will have sturdy but not complete protection," he added. "Absent that, we're going to have a perilous future."
Sony, Paramount, Universal, MGM and Warner Bros. will debut Movielink as early as October with releases priced by each studio and available in the traditional pay-per-view window (after homevideo) along with older library titles.
Although Fox and Disney have not yet signed on, Valenti said it's remarkable that five studios have agreed to partner in the service.
"These guys usually are trying to kill each other in the marketplace," Valenti added. "The toughest part of my job is holding the companies in some kind of cohesion."
The WGA has a significant interest in this area after achieving a break-through last year by expanding its basic contract with studios to include 1.2% of download revenues going to writers.
That achievement -- setting the rate four times higher than the current percentage for homevideo and DVD -- was cited as a key gain by WGA negotiators with digital delivery systems likely to replace conventional renting of videocassettes in coming years.
"We look forward to Movielink being a success," Riskin said.
Valenti said the studios are hoping for more success than the music business has had so far in preventing unauthorized file-swapping, particularly among younger Netizens.
Major record labels have created subscription services to reduce the number of illegal music downloads on the Web but financial success has been elusive.
