Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 14, 2005

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the United States, the screenwriting credit for motion pictures and television programs under its jurisdiction is determined by the Writers Guild of America (WGA). The Guild is the final arbiter of who receives credit for writing the screenplay, the original story, or creating the original characters, a privilege it has possessed since 1941. If a production company is a signatory to the Guild's Basic Agreement, it must comply with the Guild's rules; nearly all films widely distributed in the United States are subject to this jurisdiction. If any of the writers object or if credit is to be assigned to a producer or director of the film who rewrote someone else's screenplay the WGA requires the parties to compile drafts of the screenplays and an account of their work on each. This information is submitted to arbitration by a panel of three members of the Guild, which renders a decision.

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