• Red Herring, Monday, February 26, 2007 10:45 AM

The Writer's Guild of America West won a case late last week against NBC Universal over the use of its members' work on the Internet. The National Labor Relations Board agreed with the association in its dispute against NBCU over worker compensation.

WGAW took issue with NBC's decision last year to create Webisodes, short video clips, for most of its prime-ime shows. It told its writers not to agree to do the work until they'd agreed upon an acceptable fee. In the highly standardized, unionized offline world of entertainment, industry workers have fought hard to instill mandatory, complex compensation packages for workers. NBC is looking to have the decision overturned, saying the guild "illegally" instructed its members to refuse to do their work.

The specter of writer compensation on the Web has become a major thorn in the side of big media companies. The pressure is now on networks to create a comprehensive compensation scheme for Web writers, or the industry runs the risk of falling behind Web video startups and big Internet companies.

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