Go baby Go! I love that the writers are striking for the first time since 1988. Good for them. Maybe I am a little biased, because I write for a living. Maybe the average person doesn't get it, because writing is not a blue collar job and they aren't out working in mines, or in factories or 24 hour nursing shifts. But writing is a field that is often underrated and unappreciated. I used to get very angry when the studios complained that pirating and copying DVDs was hurting them. Who gets all the publicity, the attention and the money...the actors. The faces that everyone sees on the big screen or in their home every week. I would argue that people don't fall in love with actors themselves. Haven't you loved a star and gotten really excited to see they had a new TV show coming out, only to be disappointed because the show wasn't any good. That starts with the writing. The writing is the heart of it all. (Kind of like Ohio.) It starts with the script, the screenplay.
I also wonder if people really understand what this strike is all about. I do not believe it is about selfishness, that these writers have the audacity to ask for more money. It is about new media. Do you think musicians only get paid for the CDs they sell but not for the mp3s? No way. In TV writing, you not only get paid for the number of episodes you deliver during a given season, but you get paid for the number of times the show is aired. If your show goes into syndication, just like the actors, just like the studio, just like the producers, you continue to get money. It is called a residual. It is similar in some aspects, to an author's or musicians royalties. So my point is, just because the media is changing doesn't mean that the writers don't have a right to their residuals. The studios don't want to increase the rate for which writers get paid based on Internet viewers, even though the viewership has grown dramatically in the last year itself. I believe there are also some concerns about DVD sales, but I couldn't find any terms explicitly referring to that on the WGA website (Writers Guild of America).
Regardless, I say go writers. This is why we live in America. Way to fight for your rights.
