Writers Guild Of Great Britain’s Sandi Toksvig Urges Streamers To End “Buy-Out Agreements” & Embrace Residual Model

deadline.com:

Sandi Toksvig, the President of the Writers Guild of Great Britain (WGGB), has urged streamers to end their practice of “buy out agreements” and embrace residuals, aligning with the WGA’s demands.

The former Bake Off presenter is speaking in the next hour at the Trades Union Congress in Liverpool, where she will lay down a motion on “Streaming and fair pay for writers.” “The increased use of non-collectively bargained buy-out agreements risks writing becoming a profession for only those who can afford it,” the motion says. “As a result, the writing profession, and stories that are told will become less diverse.” In common with the WGA, Toksvig’s motion will criticize the streamers Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and Apple TV+ for engaging writers in “buy-out agreements” requiring them to sign away IP and copyright, which means “they do not receive any additional remuneration, even if their shows become international hits, and they cannot use their work to create theatre shows, books or audio content based on their creations.” The WGGB “recognizes the streamers’ global success and their hundreds of millions of subscribers globally generating tens of billions of pounds,” the motion adds.

The motion has much in common with the desires of the WGA, which has been demanding a success-based form of streaming residual since it went on strike in May, followed soon after by the actors union.

British actors union Equity has also aligned itself with the cause of SAG-AFTRA and is demanding a form of streamer residual in its upcoming negotiations with broadcasters and producers, along with a 15% rise in basic pay and AI provisions.