Writers Guild Highlights Compensation, Mini-Rooms in 2023 Negotiations Pattern of Demands

The Writers Guild of America has issued its pattern of demands, a set of broad priorities that it hopes to tackle in negotiations, to members for its 2023 round of talks. The sprawling, if vague, list of issues to cover — including standardized fees for features premiering theatrical and streaming platforms and greater regulation of writing performed by artificial intelligence — was sent to members for a vote on Monday, with a deadline of Tuesday, March 7 to submit responses. The WGA’s minimum basic agreement is set to expire May 1, with its first date of negotiations scheduled for March 20. Items for members’ consideration include compensation asks such as enlarging writer minimums across film, television and new media and setting standard compensation for films, whether they premiere on streaming or theatrically. The Guild seeks to expand span protection so that more writers can avoid seeing their episodic fees decrease when they work for long periods of time on short-order TV seasons, instill MBA minimums for comedy-variety work distributed on new media and regulate “uncompensated use of excerpts.” The Guild further states that it seeks to “address the abuses of mini-rooms” and “ensure appropriate television series writing compensation throughout entire
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