The last piece of the puzzle has fallen into place.
Two weeks after voting to end the creatively debilitating and financially devastating writers' strike, members of the Writers Guild of America approved the new three-year contract so painstakingly hammered out earlier this month by union negotiators and major studio heads.
The vote, cast by 4,060 scribes in New York and Los Angeles, was 93.6 percent in favor of the groundbreaking agreement, according to figures released by the WGA. Most ballots were sent in by mail.
The new deal, which in many ways mirrored the one struck by the Directors Guild of America in mid-January, officially kicked off Feb. 13 and will be the law of the land until May 1, 2011.
"This contract is a new beginning for writers in the digital age," WGA West president Patric Verrone said in a statement. “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.
"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.”
Among other things, the contract establishes new media jurisdiction and "separated rights" for WGA members; doubles residuals for downloaded content and provides a jumping-off rate for ad-supporting shows that are free for users; and allows for a cut of the proceeds if a show starts online and then makes it to television, such as Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick's Quarterlife, premiering Tuesday on NBC.
"Those residuals will be based on ‘distributor’s gross’—real money for our members—that we’ll be able to audit and monitor more effectively than ever before," WGA East president Michael Winship said.
The writers' strike, which the L.A. County Economic Development Corp. estimated took a $2.5 billion toll on the local economy, lasted 100 days and shut down production on a handful of major studio movies and dozens of scripted TV series.
The hard-fought truce was announced by WGA leaders in the wee hours of the morning on Feb. 9, and members, having been briefed on the new deal at meetings on opposite coasts, voted Feb. 12 to go back to work.
"Now that our industry is back in business, our goal is to collaborate with everyone in the industry—writers, directors, actors and stagehands alike—to produce the highest-quality entertainment products without any further interruption," the Alliance of Motion Picture and TV Producers, which represents the studios, said in a statement Tuesday.