The screen writer (June 1946-May 1947)

THE SCREEN WRITER HOW THE AUTHORITY 1. At the outset, by small loans from the four guilds, to set up a secre¬ tariat, buy supplies on which to keep records, pay the expense of incorpora¬ tion, etc., these sums to be repaid as soon as the Authority acquires a suffi¬ cient revenue of its own. 2. By a service charge, to be levied against all corporations doing business with it for each transaction that it clears, probably 1 % of the gross amount in¬ volved. If a writer sold a serial for $50,000, the Authority’s fee would be $500, and it would permit no publication until this was paid. If the serial were then sold as a book, with $2,500 advance, its fee would be $25, and if date-of-publication royalties were $10,119.82, its fee would be $101.20. If the book were then leased as a picture, at a rental of $25,000 a year for seven years, its fee would be $250 a year for seven years. And if, finally, it were leased to the radio as a weekly feature at $500 a week, its fee would be $5 a week. WILL BE FINANCED: 3. Eventually, by a percentage, to be levied relentlessly against the audited gross of every magazine, every book pub¬ lisher, every reprint publisher, every ra¬ dio station, and every picture company, to be pooled into an American Authors’ Fund, and divided among member writ¬ ers, or used, in collaboration with insur¬ ance companies on an actuarial plan to be worked out, for their future security. This must be our ultimate goal, for we must end the preposterous notion, pro¬ mulgated by the federal courts and fob¬ bed off on us by every corporation with which we deal, that we produce “goods.” We do not produce goods. Publishers do, in the books they sell, and magazines do, in the periodicals they sell and the space they sell in the periodicals, and the radio stations do, in the soap they sell and the time they sell to sell it in. But the writer produces properties, whose basic charac¬ teristic is that they are a source of wealth, and a share in that wealth we must have and shall have. WILL THE AUTHORITY SUPERSEDE THE GUILDS? The Authority not only will not make the slightest effort to supersede the guilds, but will have the result, and must have the result, if it is to function prop¬ erly, of greatly strengthening the guilds and greatly increasing their membership, revenues, and effectiveness. The guilds have evolved from the idea that the writer is primarily a craftsman, a laborer, to be organized like other laborers into guilds which closely resem¬ ble their unions. As such they have con¬ cerned themselves with his advantage. and bargained collectively for him along the classical laborer’s line of wages, hours, and working conditions. They have also concerned themselves with ad¬ vising him as to possible markets, keep¬ ing him informed of the actual status of things in magazines, book publication, etc. They take a lively interest in the constant series of questions that concern him, and it is not even remotely con¬ templated that they slacken that interest, or in any way leave their present activi¬ ties to the Authority. WHAT THE GUILDS WILL GAIN: 1. All four of the guilds will gain, almost at once, a greatly increased reve¬ nue. For if the Authority will receive material for copyright, or the copyright for assignment on material already copy¬ righted, only from members in good standing of their proper guilds, then writers have to join up and pay up. Also, for the first time, all the guilds will be in complete contact, working together on all their problems. 2. The Screen Writers will eventual¬ ly break the iron collar which the studios have riveted on their necks, which is the backlog of properties the studios have acquired all these years, so that their IB