As Hollywood fights AI, Indian screenwriters struggle for pay, credit

Minimum basic contract and a fair deal for their stories remains an ongoing battle

At a newly-opened production house in Mumbai, money remains tight. So, the founders tried doing what everyone seems to be doing these days: Use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to write scripts. The results, though, were far from impressive.

“To put it simply, AI is stupid when it comes to creative pursuits. It doesn’t understand complex human emotions,” says one of the founders who does not wish to be named.

In the West, members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) are on the picket line. Among their many demands is regulating AI, which the screenwriters fear will eat into their jobs. Given the pace at which AI is evolving and making inroads into various sectors, that fear isn’t misplaced.

Closer home, though, AI isn’t an immediate worry for Indian screenwriters.

While the Screenwriters Association (SWA), a union for screenwriters and lyricists in India's film, TV and digital media, has expressed solidarity with the WGA, its Chief Operating Officer Suheal Anwer says the fraternity here is still dealing with basic concerns: Credit for their work, termination clauses, remuneration etc. “AI is a concern for the future,” he says.

The association, which has 55,000 members (25,000 of whom are active), has over the years drawn up a minimum basic contract (MBC) for screenwriters to put across to production houses at the time of getting commissioned or hired (see box: In the write direction).

Agrees Jyoti Kapoor, the screenwriter for films like Badhaai Ho (2018) and Good Newwz (2019). “The WGA is fighting a very nuanced and first-world battle. Indian screenwriters, unfortunately, are still struggling with the basics,” she says. “The MBC is far from being implemented, even though it has been around for over a decade now. We don’t get royalties/residuals; there are still no standardised credits; and contracts can be exploitative.”

In 2019, Kapoor had called out the makers of Badhaai Ho for omitting her name from a Filmfare Award nomination for best story, even though she was credited in the film.

“Basically, there is never enough money that a writer can put aside for a rainy day. It’s heart-breaking to see the families of some of the most talented writers struggle when a rough patch hits them,” she says. “These are writers who have given blockbusters, but don’t see a single penny of royalties in their lifetime.”

With new mediums such as over-the-top (OTT) platforms, new issues have emerged. One of them is how and where the credits are displayed.

“We believe the writer is the backbone of a project. It’s about realising and appreciating that fact and not putting credits in some technical line-up,” says Anwer. “They need to be given prominence.”

To help members negotiate contracts and get legal aid, the SWA has a full-fledged legal department. Additionally, it has affiliations with various law firms. Apart from this, the association has an in-house dispute settlements committee, which works as a quasi-legal body to help settle disputes (within members, members and producers, members and directors etc) out of court.

The SWA wants a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that the Producers Guild of India can agree upon, says television writer and lyricist Zaman Habib, who is also the general secretary at SWA.

“The newer producers have a friendly approach towards us. But big production houses create problems,” he says. “They send their legal teams to negotiate with us when it is the producers we want to have those discussions with.”

Things, though, are better than before, “when producers had an almost feudal mindset because they thought they were doing a favour by giving employment to writers,” says Habib.

This change is also a result of the evolving screenwriting landscape, where the story has emerged as the hero. A higher value is now placed on the craft.

“Screenwriting was not treated as a defined, specialised profession earlier,” says Anjum Rajabali, an executive member at SWA. “The writer was mostly treated as an employee who was expected to entertain the ideas, suggestions and instructions of the producer, director, and even the actor.”

The concept of scripting a film in advance did not exist, he says. The script would evolve as the shooting progressed. “There was hardly any speculative writing being done. It is only in the last decade or so that screenwriting has emerged as a full-fledged profession.”

Rajabali, the screenwriter for movies like Raajneeti (2010) and Aarakshan (2011), was the one who started the screenplay writing course at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune.

“It ultimately boils down to how much value you ascribe to the written word, but that’s arbitrary since it is based on some vague sentiment,” says Mayank Tewari, the scriptwriter for Newton (2017), which won the Best Film and Filmfare Award for Best Story.

It is this arbitrariness that threatens AI making a serious dent in the profession.

Says Debashis Guha, associate professor and director, Master of Artificial Intelligence in Business at SP Jain School of Global Management in Mumbai, “We cannot rule out the possibility of AI writing stories; perhaps even long-form, scripts, and plays. What we have today is a variety of generative AI tools that work with text. While most of them are at an early stage and not too impressive, they are being developed at a fast pace.”

When such a time comes, newer issues will crop up. Like, who gets the credit for the script.

“Visual media AI tools currently use other existing media to create something new. This leads to copyright issues. Similarly, if it starts to write scripts, it is going to use a huge database of existing material,” Guha says, adding, “There will be a need for regulations soon, which will probably have to be international in character.”

Rajabali agrees: “Although human creativity and sense of interiority are irreplaceable, we will very soon reach a point where we will need to negotiate rules and regulations vis-à-vis usage of AI in films.” 

In the write direction

What the MBC covers*

1. Proper credits

2. Rightful termination of the contract

3. Indemnity (for when writers are barred from approaching their association)

4. Advance royalty (many studios/ platforms state that the writing fee would include some amount of future royalty, which is unacceptable to the screenwriters’ association)

5. Schedule of payment  

6. Streamlining of submissions and approvals

7. Option of buy-back (Often, even when producers decide not to go ahead with a project, they specify that the writer cannot buy back the script)

* This is not an exhaustive list