The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists said they reached a tentative three-year contract deal late last month.

The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), which has negotiated jointly with the guild over the past 27 years, decided to break the alliance in late March and negotiate on its own the new contract. AFTRA shares more than half of its 70,000 members with SAG.

The deal, which provides higher revenues for downloaded content and residual payments for ad-supported streams and clips, puts a great deal of pressure on SAG. The current contract of the SAG actors is set to expire on June 30, and AMPTP said they have "unreasonable demands" over fees from DVD sales and online content.

Now, Variety reports that 500 supporters of the Screen Actors Guild have gathered to protest against AFTRA's deal. They gathered this morning at SAG headquarters in Hollywood. AFTRA recently refused to hold off the membership vote on their tentative deal, which angered SAG leadership as they felt it weakened their position.

The problem is that more than 40,000 actors belong to both organizations. SAG president Alan Rosenberg told protesters this morning that although the SAG negotiators made significant compromises, a deal could not be reached. However, he did not detail what those compromises amount to.

It is already known that AFTRA accused SAG of pursuing unreasonable demands in their negotiations with the AMPTP. We can only hope that there will not be another months-long strike similar to the one triggered by the writers union, which effectively crippled the industry and caused alleged billions to be lost.