WGA members overwhelmingly ratify contract

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- The Writers Guild of America announced Tuesday its members overwhelmingly ratified a new contract with Hollywood's TV networks and film studios.

The WGA said 93.6 percent of the 4,060 votes cast by members in Los Angeles and New York favored the new deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

The pact, which this month ended the WGA's 14-week strike against the AMPTP, gives the writers new rights and protections for work distributed on and created for the Internet, as well as other new media platforms, the WGA said.

The agreement runs from Feb. 13, 2008, through May 1, 2011.

"This contract is a new beginning for writers in the Digital Age," Patric M. Verrone, president of the WGA West, 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."