The 14-week strike by television and film writers officially ended with membership of the Writers Guild of America voting to approve a new three-year contract with the major Hollywood studios. The pact gives writers new rights and protections for their work written exclusively for and distributed through online streaming and downloads and on mobile devices, the Guild said in a release. Guild President Patric Verrone called the contract a new beginning for writers in the digital age. “It ensures that Guild members will be fairly compensated for the content they create for the Internet, and it also covers the reuse on new media platforms of the work they have done in film since 1971 and in TV since 1977,” Verrone said. “That’s a huge body of work that will continue to generate revenue for our members for many years to come as it is distributed electronically.” The new contract expires May 1, 2011. The writers began their walkout Nov. 5 after failing to come to terms on a new contact with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The strike idled not only thousands of writers, who staged pickets outside the major studios, but also others whose jobs and careers relied on television and film production. After the Sherman Oaks-based Alliance and the Directors Guild of America reached a new contract in January, the Alliance resumed talks with the Guild to iron out their differences on compensation for writers whose work is distributed through new media. A tentative agreement was announced Feb. 11 and writers returned to work two days later.
