Guild Devises Standardized Contract Setting Internet Screenwriters’ Rights

The Writers Guild of America has drawn up a first-of-its-kind standardized contract for screenwriters to use when hired to create programming for the Internet, the union said Wednesday.

The move comes about two months after the Directors Guild of America devised a standard single-picture agreement that its members are encouraged to use when signing on to made-for-Internet productions.

In both cases, the unions developed a uniform contract internally, after informal discussions with Internet producers, rather than through formal collective bargaining with the industry.

“The world around us is changing, and it’s vital that we change along with it,” said John McLean, executive director of the Writers Guild of America, West. “Writers who create programming for the Internet deserve protections, and we are glad to be in the forefront in providing those, while remaining flexible.”

Under the standard Internet pact, initial compensation and residuals earned by the writer are negotiable but subject to pension and health contributions like those in the guild’s “Minimum Basic Agreement” for TV and film production. It also provides certain basic protections of the writer’s material, stipulating, for example, that rights to unused literary content revert to the writer within two years.