明星、罢工、流媒体和对最低剩余收入的清算

在疫情爆发的最初几周，流媒体的使用量飙升. As scientists and pundits prescribed sheltering at home as the only possible way to “flatten the curve” and slow COVID’s spread, Americans and other first-world content consumers clung to their Rokus and smart TVs for dear life. Premium streaming platforms played such a critical role in keeping consumers occupied and emboldened to face inactivity and isolation with couch-bound courage that they took on the aura of a public service. We were all in it together, and Netflix, HBO, Prime, and Peacock were right there with us.

然而，沉迷于小屏幕的公众可能非常依赖付费流媒体, 这绝不是公共服务, any more than are the baseball teams that routinely swindle cash-strapped cities into ponying up hundreds of millions in public funds to build new stadiums. 现在，新的电影和电视制作 substantially halted due to the first simultaneous Writers’ Guild and SAG-AFTRA strike in 60+ years, the major content companies who populate streaming’s top tier are serving precisely no one with new productions.

Largely at issue in the dispute are legacy residual rates in expired contracts that no longer reflect either the prevalence of streaming or the profit it brings to studios. The existing residual rates are structured to reward actors based on how many times shows are replayed in traditional network TV syndication scenarios, 而通过流媒体服务的重播则很方便地从裂缝中溜走. 一位资深女演员，凯莉·斯图尔特 All American and Black-ish fame, made headlines the week the SAG-AFTRA CBA expired (along with its largely antediluvian residuals model) by sharing screengrabs showing five residual payments from Netflix totaling a whopping 13 cents. 配音演员布洛克·鲍威尔分享了一张迪士尼的剩余工资单为了“负一分钱”——从他的58美元中拿回一分钱.49美元购买48集2020年配音作品.

正如纳丁·克雷费兹在她的最新文章中指出的那样 AdSense列, the way we measure viewership numbers for broadcast and streaming for ad sales purposes don’t comfortably align either, but parties on both sides of the divide recognize that they can’t move forward without some compromise or reconciliation (even if neither wants to be the one to compromise). For the major studios to deny the problem or claim that they have no room to negotiate in a new media landscape that they built and profit from is beyond disingenuous. And NBCUniversal has begun to engage in some none-too-subtle strikebreaking tactics too, forcing picketers into busy streets by occupying the sidewalks with construction crews, and pruning trees along other picketed blocks to reduce shade on already-sweltering days.

一线演员感到的刺痛要小得多, 但在这种情况下，要把握住一些筹码, and the union may be able leverage their stature to negotiate some of what they want. (如果演员们能维持清楚表达的愤怒弗兰·德雷舍7月13日的演讲, the studios will long for the days when they had a quick-to-cave corporate stooge SAG president like Ronald Reagan representing SAG; the future anti-worker icon 愉快地讨价还价过去未付的剩余款项在1960年SAG-WGA罢工谈判中, 早些时候，他还帮助制片厂打破了1945年的IATSE罢工.)

But another mounting concern as technology reshapes the moviemaking world is the plight of extras and bit-part players invited in and nominally paid for just enough image captures to regenerate their likeness in perpetuity through the magic of AI. (A dystopian variation on the old "You'll never work again in this town" trope.) Some viewers who have seen early experiments in 100% AI-generated videos cite the awkwardness and artificiality of the presentation as evidence that no one will ever mistake these fakes for premium Hollywood product.

但这不已经发生了吗? Masterfully manipulated vintage images of a young Harrison Ford are wowing some audiences with the dazzling de-ageing miracles of 《夺宝奇兵:命运之盘 即使顽固分子表示不相信或不为所动. Who's to say Disney couldn't reanimate that image in dozens or more future Indiana Jones films without ever involving the real Ford again, until pre-deepfake films become archeological artifacts of a distant entertainment past?

拐点在这里. If we still want to see real and decently paid humans marching across our screens—reciting lines authored by someone other than ChatGPT—the entertainment industry needs to recognize the indispensability of human labor and talent and meet the demands of that talent at all levels.

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