We get a do-over. Let's not miss.

An open letter from a SAG-AFTRA member about Vertical Shorts, Artificial Intelligence and the future of Hollywood.

Listen to a podcast version of this post above.

An Open Letter

A lot of people criticize our union (even sometimes this guy), but there is also a lot to be celebrated and supported in the unyielding time and talent of staff and member volunteers who work every day to protect the livelihoods of over a hundred thousand performers across dozens of categories… and often in new emerging forms and formats.

Everyone and their mother is talking about Vertical Shorts as these micro melodramas have flooded our feeds and audition sites. While I have expressed my reservations, we should take the “w” that our industry and leadership are proactively considering any path toward gainful employment. However in facing the future, we must acknowledge and learn from the past.

Working with SAG-AFTRA members is more than a privilege, it’s the path to legitimacy, especially for an emerging market or company. The access to our highest profile members is often our biggest bargaining chip and we rarely get an early seat at the table.

There is no Netflix without House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black. These shows lured veteran talent into the “cord-cutting” revolution that has steadily depressed wages, benefits and negotiating power with a fundamentally unsustainable business thesis of unlimited, ad-free premium content for twelve bucks a month. Meanwhile YouTube and social streaming became “the wild west” proliferating low/no pay ad-supported projects that generated viewership that rivaled primetime broadcast television.

Instead of a “golden era” we saw an “ancillary” means of exhibition swallow the entire industry as the dominant mode of distribution. Somehow in the peak of Streaming, during the captive-audience of COVID, our health and pension funds became so underfunded, that our threshold to qualify almost doubled and we kicked seniors and secondarily-insured households off the plan. This is not what a member-led union looks like. And this cannot be the future.

The good news is… we get to have a do-over.

With Vertical Shorts, we are standing in front of the single greatest opportunity to right the wrongs of the last several decades. Every mistake with home video, electronic sell-through, streaming, video games, social media, all of it.

We hold the power (for now) because the biggest criticism of this format is the quality of the performances. Let’s leverage that into an agreement that we want, not one we think they’ll agree to.

Below are my thoughts on what a meaningful Vertical Agreement would look like. Please share and suggest your own ideas, but more importantly bring your own voice to the conversation…

---

Promulgated Agreements

Unlike our Legacy Contracts collectively bargained on a set, multi-year schedule, our union has the ability to experiment at any time with promulgated agreements as a good-faith, opt-in invitation for producers to test alternative, unproven methods, without stripping members of their rights. We did this for the “New Media Agreement” which ultimately failed in balancing the flexibility for deferred payment by new creators with protections against predatory practices by large companies.

I don’t need to re-litigate the past. I lived it. I was part of web series projects that were later syndicated on television, DVD, international streaming and broadcast. I am quite confident I would not have the career I have without YouTube, but my career and financial success never came from YouTube. I made a lot of other people very wealthy and successful and then got lucky that a few projects made me recognizable to TV and Film casting offices.

These agreements are the very instrument and process by which we should be able to ask for what we want. This is not a negotiation. This is not collective bargaining. This is us opening the door to new opportunity under guidelines that make us equal beneficiaries of that opportunity.

---

Six Components We Can’t Ignore

1. Residuals
The entire hype around vertical shorts is that “millions of users” are paying micro-transactions that add up to $20+ dollars per Title of roughly 100 sixty second episodes.

If true, the real value is the long tail. Our members deserve to share in that revenue. Revenue that we never retroactively received from digital or interactive media. We simply don’t need another contract where performers generate the content, but never see the paycheck. Allowing access to our members would be a money-play. So let’s see the money.

2. AI Protections
We’ve already seen too many abuses of actors’ likenesses hidden under “in perpetuity” language. (I remain suspicious that the real "customer" of this content is AI training farms.) Regardless, any future agreement needs a clear opt-in as a check-box binary:

• Either a total ban on ingestion and integration of member data under this contract (notably so far these companies have been unwilling to agree to this); or

• Crystal-clear guidelines on the consent, storage, and use of member data and compensation for each component. (This is like our commercial agreements that designate a session fee, holding fee and residual fee for each phase or milestone of the commercial and a complete forfeit of producer’s rights when payments cease.)

3. Secondary Exhibition
New performance opportunities cannot become loopholes for producers to bypass traditional rights. Exhibition must be narrowly defined. Heck, they are called Vericals. We should be able to eyeball any deviation from the intended format and script. Any use outside scope must trigger a “move-over” to the proper agreement so the integrity of our legacy contracts and rights can be preserved, not circumvented.

4. Self-Producing
This one is always a dance. Our members want (and need) to create their own projects in their bedrooms and basements with their friends. But we don’t want to create loopholes for employers to devalue this labor. Instead of ignoring this inevitability, we should build it in. Perhaps there is a provision whereby the producers gain more favorable and flexible terms if the majority ownership (and gross revenues) remain with a union member. This would offer our members better negotiating leverage and participation in successful projects. Meanwhile our members are empowered to make speculative personal projects using their good standing and dues with the union as collateral. I certainly would be happy to become a signatory and majority owner of one of these projects with the union’s mutual interest in my receiving producer participation. Those qualified earnings could help fund our plans and supplement our member’s survival.

5. Multi-Picture Deals & Annual Contracts
Every new medium has a few break out stars. Think YouTube, Vine, podcasts… and many times, they are non-union performers that SAG-AFTRA chases for enrollment. Meanwhile, our members struggle with consistency of work and benefits. If these companies want volume…Why not offer minimum-guarantee deals? A year-long contract to engage a performer across multiple projects at favorable rates to ensure the member qualified for health and pension, while helping companies expedite casting and production. (For reference, I know a few folks making $15k per Vertical, shot within a month. A 30k annual minimum guarantee would immediately trigger health and pension qualification and transform a performer’s baseline).

6. Enforcement
The biggest failure of our agreements isn’t the language… it’s enforcement. Claims drag on for months or years, only to end in arbitration securing pennies on the dollar. Again, the only reason to engage with this new vertical (see what I did there?) is establishing a new, reliable stream of economic and career opportunity for the membership. Let’s bake enforcement into the contract. The recent Anthropic court ruling sets a precedent of $150,000 per plaintiff per violation. Imagine that kind of dissuasion power written into our agreement. More reasonably, imagine meeting in the middle of a tangible path to cure any disagreement with a pre-determined penalty that would save both sides legal fees/delays in the unfortunate event of a violation (by either party).

Enforcement is also only possible through transparent reporting. Platforms still refuse to share complete and accurate viewership data. Without it, we can never reasonably calculate or enforce residuals. This agreement gives us an opportunity to pilot verifiable accounting on primary exhibition, monthly transactions, secondary syndication, and any move-over. Why not set out to make the most turn-key contract for enforceability and damages in our union's history? Afterall, isn't this about innovation?

---

Final Thoughts

None of this is radical. None of it is controversial. These companies want recognizable celebrities and established talent to anchor and legitimize their business. The moment they have a few famous faces in their lineup, they will seek venture capital and price increases. This is the beginning. Let's only give them a path to opt-in that is truly sustainable and beneficial for our members. The urgency of this moment gives us leverage we will never have again… and it empowers our sibling unions to do the same.

If our first priority isn’t bold, blue-sky terms for everyone, then why make a deal? Heck, why have unions at all if not to fight for a contract worthy of the people who built … and will build… this industry. This could be our hail-mary to reinforce the value of our members, stabilize the health and pension funds, and help get the industry on its feet after a pandemic, strike and contraction.

This is that moment. Let’s meet it on our terms.

Thank you.