You can see the problem here: One side controls all the numbers that are the basis for the residual paid to the other side. Any book author (guilty as charged) knows the fun with accounting that occurs when they get incomprehensible royalty statements that always seem to chisel down their payments. “For years Netflix has provided some showrunners/talent/producers individual data points on their show’s performance, and it often confused talent more than helped,” said Entertainment Strategy Guy, whose data all comes from third-party sources.

Some audited data is released publicly by Netflix and Disney+, but usually at the global level, while the new residual is domestic only. So it wouldn’t be that hard to claim that writers missed out on residuals, given that lack of transparency. “I think the publicly released data will be phrased in ways that don’t line up to the data reported back to the WGA, making one-to-one comparisons fairly tough to compare,” Entertainment Strategy Guy explained.

The AMPTP didn’t want to include a viewership-based residual at all, so getting one set up is still a huge win for the WGA. Negotiating committee members have said that the details reflect a compromise. But it’s also going to require significant vigilance and maybe demands for a public, independent ratings process for streaming.

[This got referred to me as a pretty good representation of what happened in the strike, and it’s a good read. There may be no real way around Hollywood accounting, which people in the industry have called the “creative” end of the business for decades, and for good reason. This will also be a problem for the SAG-AFTRA negotiators, who will likely get the same or similar deal. — Ed]