Please don't misunderstand me - I'm no Democrat!! I'm just using the terms in the same way the tax code and Social Security Administration do.
The point is that when one has an investment in a productive asset, whether it be a stock portfolio or a manufacturing facility, that asset is what creates the wealth. Couldn't we say that the ongoing use of your friend's work in the product of the film was what created his stream of earnings?
Similarly, when the world was in upheaval from 1939 - 1945, everybody looked to the US and its productive capacity to be the the "arsenal of democracy". If we abandon "production" in favor of "services", we cannot fulfill this role and, with some limited exceptions like the one you pointed out, the wealth dries up.
That's fair-- I call it 'passive income' when I'm talking to the revenuers too. Of course if we're using federal government definitions for these business terms then we can't say the service sector doesn't produce anything. That is if we want to be consistent --but hey, nobody else is why should we be? ;^)
Two hundred years ago, French tyrants thought that all that mattered was who had the most manpower for the army. Over time, German tyrants showed that an army backed with heavy manufacturing could beat manpower by itself. By 1945, even a huge army backed by an enormous industrial base couldn't fight a nation with plenty of scientists, instructors, and engineers. That was back when the battle was just for air supremacy. Today's warfare is for information supremacy.