The Writers Guild of Canada treats digital distribution as another form of distribution of a television program. Revenues go into a pot with other standard distribution revenues and a royalty is paid (after deduction of the cost of the budget). If there are no revenues – no payment is required. Even if there are revenues it takes a while before there are sufficient revenues for a royalty to be payable.

For original digital content script fees are fully negotiable. At no time are writers prohibited from performing more than one role. We just ask that the writing services be clearly identified and separately compensated in any contract.

So you can see that there’s no reason to avoid using highly skilled professional writing talent. They are very affordable and quite good at what they do.

Kelly Lynne Ashton
Director of Policy
Writers Guild of Canada