[CharlieDontSurf]

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For all we know, networks might lose money on streaming TV shows because of the bandwidth, with the ads only partially making up for the loss or making it break-even.

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So what?

Seriously, this 'they (say they) aren't making money on the webcasts' argument makes no sense, how do people not see that??

If TV broadcasts of LOST were losing ABC money, are they justified in not paying their writers? No of course not, they are perfectly entitled to cancel the show, but if they keep playing it, even if they are losing money in the process, they have to pay the writers.

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None of this matters, including what I said. The writers are entitled to whatever their contract says they're entitled to it, and it doesn't matter what you and I decide we think is fair. If they can negotiate it up, fine.

I don't like how it's a given that the writers are "entitled" to royalties when a show is re-run or released on DVD. If the studios decide "f this - we're going to pay a flat $10,000 for each completed script of According to Jim with no royalties ever", and if they're able to get the scripts they need with that agreement, then more power to them.

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From JA's blog

And in the process of converting written words to filmed entertainment, a bit of legal sleight-of-hand takes place. I’m going to oversimplify it to make it comprehensible, but the longer, more accurate version matches the shape of what I’m about to explain.

Whether you write a song, a book or a screenplay, you’re protected by copyright. More than that, you’re acknowledged as the Author of the work, which has important (but eye-glazingly complicated) implications under international law, including certain inalienable creative rights. When movie studios read your screenplay and decide they’d like to make it into a film, they hit a few snags. Two examples:

1. As the Author and copyright-holder, you the writer control the ability to make derivative works, such as a movie. Or a sequel. Or a videogame.
2. Some of your inalienable2 creative rights as Author (e.g. “no one can mutilate or distort the work in such as way as to be prejudicial to the honor or reputation of the author”) are potential nightmares for a company about to spend $100 million on a movie distributed worldwide.

So a compromise was made.

Screenwriters would sell the “authorship” of their screenplays to the studios,3 and allow themselves to be classified as employees. Original works would thus become works-made-for-hire.

In exchange, screenwriters would get a host of benefits and protections covered by the Writers Guild of America (the WGA), which as a labor union can only represent employees.

The WGA would also collect royalties on behalf of screenwriters. Royalties were renamed “residuals,” since only “authors” collect royalties. 4