The International Affiliation of Writers Guilds (IAWG) was established in 1986 to address the globalization of the entertainment industry and improve the working conditions of professional film and television writers worldwide through collective action, mutual support and common representation internationally. Its member guilds work on behalf of 50,000 writers in the areas of collective bargaining, standard contracts, credit disputes, government lobbying, and the promotion of the essential role of the writer as first creator in the filmmaking process.
Originally formed by guilds from English-speaking countries, today the IAWG includes members from Autores Literarios de Medios Audiovisuales (Spain), La Guilde Française des Scénaristes (France), the New Zealand Writers Guild, the Screenwriters Association (India) the Scriptwriters Guild of Israel, the Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma (Québec), the Writers Guild of America East, the Writers Guild of America West, the Writers Guild of Canada, the Writers Guild of Great Britain, Deutscher Drehbuchverband (the Writers Guild of Germany), the Writers Guild of Ireland, and Writers Guild of South Africa. The Screenwriters Guild of Korea joined as associate members in 2019. Links to member web sites can be accessed by clicking on the relevant logo.
In 2009, the IAWG strengthened its relationship with the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe at the first World Conference of Screenwriters in Athens, Greece. Since then, the two groups have converged in Barcelona, Spain (2012), Warsaw, Poland (2014), Berlin, Germany (2018), and Copenhagen, Denmark (2022).
Through financial, professional, and collegial support, the IAWG plays a mentoring role in assisting emerging guilds in their development and helps to build professional working relationships among more established organizations. Its annual general meetings focus on the exchange of information on bargaining strategies, developments in technology, legislation, the work of collecting societies, and copyright law. The realization that writers’s struggles are universal in nature is in itself empowering.
“The members of the IAWG seek to build on the hard-won protections our sister Guilds in America, the WGAE and the WGAW, were able to achieve during their strike: namely that AI should be a tool to enhance our writing process, not diminish the value of our work or replace us.”
— Irish Screenwriter and IAWG Chair, Jennifer Davidson
Position on the Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence
April 11, 2024
As resolved at their annual general meetings in 2023, the members of the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds (IAWG) and Federation of European Screenwriters (FSE) agree that, whether through collective bargaining, mandatory clauses in standard contracts, or through lobbying for regulation and legislation, the IAWG, FSE, and its member guilds will:
1) Affirm that only writers create literary material and that large language models (LLMs) or any other present or future forms of artificial intelligence (AI), cannot be used in place of writers;
2) Work to create mechanisms for obligatory transparency and accountability and to ensure writers are informed if AI generated material is used to write, rewrite, polish or perform any additional writing services;
3) Advocate for robust licensing mechanisms that require explicit and informed consent for the use of writers’ intellectual property in AI training data with a goal to ensure only intellectual property that has been licensed for such use be included in the datasets of commercialized LLMs, or any other present or future forms of AI;
4) Ensure that only human beings are entitled to authors rights and recognized under copyright law in the context of machine generated material;
4) Ensure that only human beings are entitled to authors rights and recognized under copyright law in the context of machine generated material;
5) Advocate for fair remuneration for the use of writers’ intellectual property in LLMs or any other present or future forms of AI.
For additional information, please send an email to sarah@iawg.org.
