Netflix will have to pay
Netflix had managed to find a scheme, allowing it to pay certain screenwriters much less than it should have. But today, the sentence has fallen: no tricks, the giant must pay. The WGA (literally the screenwriters guild of America) emerged victorious from the arbitration which opposed it to Netflix.
In total, Netflix is expected to pay $42 million in residual rights to 216 screenwriters and may even have to release an additional $13.5 million in damages as a result of this late payment. That should set the record straight.
According to the WGA, Netflix would have negotiated agreements with the association of American directors and that of the actors not to pay the teams correctly. The streaming leader would then have tried to pass this agreement with the screenwriters guild. Hence the decision to go through a third party for arbitration. Basically, 216 screenwriters who have worked on 139 Netflix projects, including Red Notice, were paid considerably less thanks to a clever sleight of hand. It’s about license fees and fees.
This victory of the screenwriters comes down, in large part, to the arbitration decision concerning the film bird box. Again, Netflix had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to the writers of one of the platform’s most popular original films starring Sandra Bullock. In the end, the firm with the red N was ordered to release more than a million dollars in residual rights and damages to the creators. This first victory has thus opened the door to others. Thanks to her, therefore, many screenwriters will be able to receive the money that is due to them. It would seem that this kind of litigation should be more and more numerous in the era of SVOD.