Royalties are a form of ownership of the work. Stock options and other equity grants give employees an opportunity to take ownership shares of the work, which m

Royalties are a form of ownership of the work. Stock options and other equity grants give employees an opportunity to take ownership shares of the work, which more or less accomplishes the same thing. The reality is that a hit show may have 7-10 core writers and reach hundreds of millions of people. Software engineers working for a few years as part of a company with 1000 or more other engineers doesn't isn't really going to produce comparable upside per engineer. Given the choice, most people would prefer higher up-front pay over lower up-front pay with an option to have more royalties on the back-end.