Writing for hire
Subtitle: unions, Hollywood, and Madison Avenue
By: Catherine L. Fisk
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 308
ISBN-13: 9780674971400
Subjects: Labor unions; Copyright; Authorship; Screen Writers' Guild; Screenwriters; Motion picture authorship; Television authorship
Description: Required to sign away their legal rights as authors as a condition of employment, professional writers may earn a tidy living for their work, but they seldom own their writing. Writing for Hire traces the history of labor relations that defined authorship in film, TV, and advertising in the mid-twentieth century. Catherine L. Fisk examines why strikingly different norms of attribution emerged in these overlapping industries, and she shows how unionizing enabled Hollywood writers to win many authorial rights, while Madison Avenue writers achieved no equivalent recognition.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-295) and index.
Table of contents: title: The cloak of anonymity and the literary gunman; title: The new story system; title: Agency-built storytelling; title: The revolution will be televised; title: The writer's share; title: The blacklist; title: Pencils for hire and mad men in gray flannel suits.