As for the difficulties of writing, I wrote a book (philosophy) over many years presenting what I believe is an original theory of human behavior. Writing is hard and there is no guarantee of success. I cannot get an agent let alone a publisher.

Christy in a post “Shaping the Facts” (sorry I don’t know how to insert links) wants to energize voters. If we can organize something to unite the blogs with people registering so we know where they live in order to act locally, we might be able to create an organization that gives real power to the people, something that influences political parties as well as voters, and we might be able to think of something to support the writers-like a boycott or other action to hit the bastards where they live.

Also, for your own edification, I’d like to propose this: pretend you are a writer on your favorite show. Write a script for that show in two weeks. Then write another one in two weeks, and so on for 13 shows. It’s not as easy as it appears when you read the script how much work and experience goes into it.

TeaLeaves@126, I think you’ve said that very well. Thanks for the props.

There have been plenty of instances of strikes which end up with a picket line everyone ignores while business goes on more or less as usual.

…Not only do reality shows take minimal writing, movies and tv get more visual. People watch frame after frame of action with little dialogue. The bosses don’t care about content. They would broadcast test patterns if advertisers continue to buy time.

Labor union members learn the hard way they do not have a monopoly on skill. The formerly highly touted American worker is replaced by Asian farmers who in two weeks learn how to make hard drives. Professional writers don’t have a monopoly on creativity. Youtube demonstrates so-called ordinary people are extremely creative.

Writers think they are different from automobile workers who circumstances have battered. I disagree. They are up against a stacked deck. The bosses, as usual, have the high cards.

Your analogy is flawed. People working in factories making hard drives do not CREATE something out of thin air. They participate in a rationalized, step-by-step process. That’s the nature of that particular beast. Their employment situation is not equivilent to writers — the factory workers didn’t invent the machine; they only work in it.

But it’s a very different beast from watching someone create a complex, original thing — whether it’s an engineer inventing something that is patented, or a writer.

Equating working on any assembly line to working in ‘knowledge fields’ is flawed. Assembly lines do not require investing in extended education. Information-based jobs require a lot of training and practice. Writers are information workers, but with a twist; like engineers, they create and invent.

An engineer who gains patent protection gets a ‘residual’ every time that product is used. Adobe still gets ‘residuals’ from Microsoft for every copy of Word that contains PDF code. Everywhere you look, people are paid for what they invent and create.

Where that doesn’t occur, economies lose their vitality.
If writers originate the ‘product’, then they should be paid throughout the lifecycle of the ‘product’ — whether it’s a movie, a tv show, or a video game plot.

The writers seem to simply be asking for fair treatment. The ‘managerial class’ of Hollywood moguls were foolish to let things escalate to this point.

readerOfTeaLeaves @ 69

Regarding your speculation re motives

I assume that part of this brouhaha reflects genuine terror among very driven, affluent interests that happen to be on the wrong demographic, technical, economic, and sociological side of the issue.

I repeat from an earlier post:

can anyone comment on the possible political motivations behind the WGA strike, which conveniently takes out all late night TV but leaves O’Reilly and the rest of the Fox propaganda machine in place?

I’m just wondering if the aforesaid “affluent interests” also happen to be on the wrong end of the political spectrum.

Your point about O’Reilly hadn’t crossed my mind.

As for O’Reilly, the lucrative demographic has moved beyond him, b/c he can’t shed light on $100/barrel oil, and he can’t shed light on banks writing down billions in subprime loans. If I owned Netflix or online gaming systems, I’d be thrilled that O’Reilly is the only guy on teevee — it’s a great opportunity for other media to outfox FauxNewz.

But writers should get residuals; if the economy melts down on a huge scale, the whole topic of ‘economic justice’ is simply going to be come more resonant. Can’t happen too soon, IMHO.

The producers enjoy the fact that they make the most money and have the most “stuff”. Any meeting you take these days (pre strike) had the obligatory mention of second houses in France, or vacation island time-share ownership, or your evening with Prince Charles at the annual Prince’s Trust dinner. Really. It’s about as subtle as the biggest dog getting to hump everyone in the room.

I doubt there are enough self-hating scab writers who actually have the chops to write network-level TV, who could handle the workload…and all the showrunners are on strike in any case. But as time goes on, if we’re talking months for instance, it’s a scary proposition. I personally think the writers will win, because they HAVE to, and because they’re right. But we’ll see.

The issue is pretty simple: the large corporations are making money on the work of the writers (and others) by new methods of distribution, and are refusing to share any of those profit to those who, in all other media forms of distribution, are currently getting a cut. In other words, the corporations are claiming that somehow distribution on web/pod doesn’t come under the term “distribution” as currently defined in the contracts, just because those old contracts don’t specifically say “web/podcase” in them.

Why we fight.

But they really couldn’t succeed by using scabs, which is the typical strike busting method.

Most scabs come not from the outside but are union members who for various reasons, mostly they need the money, cross the line. In a union where the median income is $5,000, the temptation to improve on that will be strong. Besides writers get less important. Not only do reality shows take minimal writing, movies and tv get more visual. People watch frame after frame of action with little dialogue. The bosses don’t care about content. They would broadcast test patterns if advertisers continue to buy time.

Labor union members learn the hard way they do not have a monopoly on skill. The formerly highly touted American worker is replaced by Asian farmers who in two weeks learn how to make hard drives. Professional writers don’t have a monopoly on creativity. Youtube demonstrates so-called ordinary people are extremely creative.

Writers think they are different from automobile workers who circumstances have battered. I disagree. They are up against a stacked deck. The bosses, as usual, have the high cards.