[karmonhardan]

The contracts aren't necessarily fair. As with gig work, people will take a bad deal that keeps them solvent in the short term, even if it ruins them long-term, if there isn't really any other way to put their assets to use. VFX crews have to work long hours, often for less than minimum wage, to meet ridiculous contractual requirements; the unfairness of the compensation has lead to several high-profile shutdowns of studios whose work helped secure 9-figure returns and Oscars. And even if the studio survives, workers can end up without a credit in the final product, if they had to leave the project early or there were simply too many people involved.

[echoangle]

Maybe I’m too liberal here, but in my opinion, that’s how a job market works (and should work). As long as they get minimum wage, they can either do the job with the agreed upon conditions and payment or they can work somewhere else. And if they don’t get minimum wage like you claimed, they should sue. If the contract was broken, they should sue, too.

[karmonhardan]

This is the argument always used to excuse abuse of labor, and I completely reject it. These are skilled artists and technicians with lives to live - minimum wage is far below the minimum they're owed. Just because powerful interests - who can manipulate the courts as much as they do their contracts - have found a reliable way to exploit workers, doesn't mean that it's how things should work. And it definitely doesn't oblige me to feel sorry for them when they get scammed themselves. Just deserts.

[echoangle]

Well the film studio asks them if they want to work for a given rate (or they ask the studio) and both sides agree to the contract. If there is too much supply because many people want to work in the space, it lowers the prices. I don’t think they are owed anything just because they have a lot of skill or are creative.

How would you do it?

You don’t have to feel sorry for the film studios of course, I’m not crying for them either. But I still think there’s a difference between pirating movies and having an advantageous position in a job market.

[karmonhardan]

>I don’t think they are owed anything just because they have a lot of skill or are creative.

I do. What's indicated here is an overabundance of pricing power on the film studios' side, which is a direct result of laws and policies that were designed to benefit and advantage businesses over labor (for a variety of reasons, some justifiable and some not). You want to cast this as a natural and organic process when it's anything but; if it were, the skill ceiling involved in the trade and returns from movie sales would likely have topped out at a more appropriate point vis a vis wages. That is, the fact that these CG-heavy films are making more money than ever, and that VFX is incredibly difficult to break into because of the high skill required, and wages are still low, and VFX studios are still going under, suggests that wages are being artificially depressed.

>But I still think there’s a difference between pirating movies and having an advantageous position in a job market.

Nah. It's a case of filthy-rich scammers getting scammed by a filthy rich scammer. Their bad behavior, at the very least, helps to legitimize exploitation (popularly, if not so much legally). But I think it goes further than that. The depressed wages of labor and concentration of capital in the hands of elite executives and business owners has helped to shape the socioeconomic status quo, where so many consumers simply can't afford to purchase film tickets and media the way that they used to be able to, but also where the pressure to participate in pop culture and consume content is stronger than ever. The result is that people are willing to access this content however they can, creating an opportunity for hustlers like Kim.

Obviously, the solution is to dismantle many of the policy benefits that let big businesses exploit workers, and to break up the capital accretion that allowed them to capture policy in the first place. Dismantle the economic distortions that led us here.

[echoangle]

Can you explain some policy benefits that let studios exploit the workers? I’m genuinely not aware, I was under the impression that it’s just supply and demand driving down prices.