Hollywood protests for fairness in the age of streaming and AI

In New York and Los Angeles, actors marched outside the offices of Netflix, Paramount and other leading film distribution companies, expressing demands for higher compensation for working-class actors and other groups.

hollywood fights for fairness in the online age and image 1 — Hollywood actors, artists... protest at Netflix headquarters on July 14, 2023. Photo: Reuters

“We have an old contract for a new business model and it doesn’t work for most people,” actor Susan Sarandon said outside the Warner Bros Discovery offices in New York. “The greed that the studios have has made life very difficult for people.”

Hollywood's biggest movie stars are wealthy, but most of the 160,000 members of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) are not, and often live a rather difficult life. They may be actors, stuntmen or voice artists.

“Most of us are middle-class actors and writers, and we just want to be able to do the things that everyone else has in life and own a house, have a family and make a living,” actor Caitlyn Knisely said outside Paramount Pictures headquarters in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, across the street outside Netflix headquarters, protesters chanted “Netflix pay up!”

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, a former star of the TV show “The Nanny,” joined the protesters in solidarity. “If we don’t get this situation under control from these greedy rabble, we’re all at risk of losing our livelihoods,” he said.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the negotiating group on behalf of Netflix, Walt Disney and other studios, said it has offered significant compensation increases to SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America (WGA).

Unions are also seeking assurances that their jobs will not be replaced by artificial intelligence, nor will their brainpower and effort be “stolen” by these tools.

hollywood fights for fairness in the online age and image 2 — The work of Hollywood artists is at risk of being exploited by artificial intelligence tools. Photo: GI

Artificial intelligence has become a sensitive issue for film and television actors, who fear it could be used to copy their voices and likenesses.

Actors are negotiating with Hollywood studios to assert control over digital representations of themselves on screen, a sticking point in contract negotiations with Hollywood studios that ended Wednesday without a deal.

AMPTP said it had agreed to a “groundbreaking AI proposal” to protect artists’ digital images. The protections would include requiring the actor’s consent to create and use a digital copy.

“I want to see protections around artificial intelligence, not to block this technology,” said Linda Powell, vice president of SAG-AFTRA. “We know the world is moving forward, technology is moving forward, but we want fairness.”

Huy Hoang (according to Reuters, Poynter, AP)

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