 |
|
|
|||||
Video game voice actors and motion capture artists could be headed back to work soon. SAG-AFTRA and major video game companies have announced a tentative contract agreement, 11 months after union members began a work stoppage. Artificial intelligence was at the heart of the dispute. “Patience and persistence has resulted in a deal that puts in place the necessary AI guardrails that defend performers livelihoods in the AI age, alongside other important gains,” said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, chief negotiator for the union, in a statement. Terms of the agreement were not immediately released. SAG-AFTRA said it would offer details with ratification materials to members. While a tentative deal is in place, members will continue to strike the major video game companies until the final terms are agreed upon, the union said. SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher seemed to stop short of declaring victory. “The needle has been moved forward, and we are much better off than before,” she said. But later, Drescher added that planning would begin for the next negotiation immediately. “Every contract is a work in progress.” Voice and performance artists have been on strike since July 2024 against Activision Productions, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts Productions, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, WB Games, Take 2 Productions, Blindlight, and Epic Games. The strike followed 18 months of negotiations. Generative AI was at the heart of the dispute, as the union maintained there were no contractual provisions that prevented game companies from training AI to reproduce an actor’s voice or likeness without informed consent. (Game publishers countered that their AI proposal contained strong protections for performers, requiring prior consent and fair pay when duplicating their performances.) The union worked out side deals with over 130 game developers early in the strike, which let work continue on many titles. Industry analysts say the settlement is a good development for the industry, noting that many games are increasing the use of live actors in development (such as Norman Reedus taking a lead role in Death Stranding and the growing number of celebrities who appear in the Fortnite series). “I think these artists are essential and were relatively unappreciated until executive producers saw how much worse AI solutions were,” says Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities. “There is a tendency for Hollywood to get this, and for video game developers to assume they can replace anyone with software. But its clear from the settlement that the game publishers agreed that these actors are essential.” The strike over AI protections was the second SAG-AFTRA work stoppage the video game industry has faced in the past decade. In 2016-2017, voice actors and publishers battled over the issue of residual payments. That strike lasted for 340 days, resulting in a three-year contract, though many voice actors complained the agreement was toothless and the union had ceded too much ground. The agreement called for “bonus pay” based on the number of sessions a performer worked on each game, but it did not follow the traditional residual model. The tentative agreement over AI demands comes just over a month after video game companies gave their “best and last” offer to SAG-AFTRA. The two parties began negotiating on a new agreement in October 2022.
Category:
E-Commerce
Falling fertility rates typically get blamed on the women of the world. But a new study published by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says both men and women face significant barriers to realizing their fertility aspirations. Its not that they dont want to have childrenrather, they just arent able to in the ways they want to. According to the report, barriers in political discourse, healthcare policies, financial instability, and climate change are some of the leading causes for globally declining birth ratesand furthermore, they prevent many from realizing their preferred child status. The evidence is clear: We are moving from a world of rapid population expansion in the mid-20th century to a period of declining fertility rates, Dr. Natalia Kanem, executive director of UNFPA said. UNFPA partnered with market research and data analytics firm YouGov to ask 14,000 people across 14 countries what they want for their reproductive futures and why. According to the report, nearly one in five participants cited a fear of the future as affecting their decision to have fewer children than they desire, including concerns about climate change, environmental degradation, wars, and pandemics. Meanwhile, 39% reported financial limitations as affecting their decision. The countries included in the study represent a third of the world population, and include North Korea (the country with the lowest fertility rate), Nigeria (the country with the highest fertility rate), and the U.S. (somewhere in the middle). All participants’ reasons behind their reproductive status were divided into five factors: Health, including infertility and a lack of medical care Economic, including unemployment and housing situations Changed desires, including partner or personal decisions Concerns over future, including political or climate concerns Other, including lack of partner or societal pressure It is hard to escape the conclusion that these concernswhich certainly warrant policy responsesare rooted in outdated notions around who should be reproducing and why, and the notion that the achievement of a countrys preferred birth rate will ensure economic and political security, Kanem said. The UNFPA will use this reports data to inform a youth reproductive choices survey launching later this year, with the goal of informing future global policy and programming. See the full report here.
Category:
E-Commerce
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. During the pandemic housing boom, from summer 2020 to spring 2022, the number of active homes for sale in most housing markets plummeted as homebuyer demand quickly absorbed almost everything that came up for sale. Fast-forward to the current housing market, and the places where active inventory has rebounded to 2019 levels (due to strained affordability suppressing buyer demand) are now the very places where homebuyers hold the most power. At the end of May 2025, national active housing inventory for sale was still 12% below May 2019 levels. However, more and more regional markets are surpassing that threshold. This list is growing. At the end of January 2025, 41 of these 200 major markets were back above pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels. At the end of February, it was 44. By the end of March 2025, 58 of these 200 major markets were back above pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels. At the end of April 2025, that number had climbed to 69. Now, at the latest reading for the end of May 2025, 75 of the 200 markets are above pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels, and ResiClub expects that count will continue to rise this year. Many of the softest housing markets, where homebuyers have gained leverage, are located in Gulf Coast and Mountain West regions. These areas were among the nations top pandemic boomtowns, having experienced significant home price growth during the pandemic housing boom, which stretched far beyond local income levels. When pandemic-fueled migration slowed and mortgage rates spiked, markets like Cape Coral, Florida, and San Antonio, Texas, faced challenges as they had to rely on local incomes to sustain frothy home prices. The housing market softening in these areas was further accelerated by the abundance of new home supply in the pipeline across the Sun Belt. Builders in these regions are often willing to reduce prices or make other affordability adjustments to maintain sales. These adjustments in the new construction market also create a cooling effect on the resale market, as some buyers who might have opted for an existing home shift their focus to new homes where deals are still available. In contrast, many Northeast and Midwest markets were less reliant on pandemic migration and have less new home construction in progress. With lower exposure to that demand shock, active inventory in these Midwest and Northeast regions has remained relatively tight, keeping the advantage in the hands of home sellers. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}))}(); Generally speaking, housing markets where inventory (i.e., active listings) has returned to pre-pandemic levels have experienced weaker home price growth (or outright declines) over the past 30 months. Conversely, housing markets where inventory remains far below pre-pandemic levels have, generally speaking, experienced stronger home price growth over the past 30 months.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||