Monday, November 19, 2007

Monday, Nov. 19, 2007: strike day 15

Quote of the day:click here

Creativity, Strikes and Power

On the surface, the writers would seem to have all the cards, and the stagehands few. Hollywood writers fuel a much larger enterprise owned by publicly traded companies, have creative expertise and they even had Ron Howard walking a picket in front of Viacom in New York last Thursday. (When you’re riding with Opie, your cause must be just.)

But the stagehands, who began striking almost a week after the writers, are most likely the ones who will be heading back to work first. The writers still confront the stalemate over distribution of revenues from digital content. So how will 400 or so (mostly) beefy guys in Manhattan accomplish what currently seems beyond the reach of the 12,000 members of the writers’ guild?

Begin with the fact that the stagehands have actual leverage — the ability to shut down moneymaking entertainment that occurs at a specific time and place. Writers are increasingly part of a digital economy, where entertainment comes from every direction, and shutting off the spigot is next to impossible.

The issue was addressed with some unintended irony last week when one of the writers from “The Daily Show” put together a cute, well-written video about the greed and shortsightedness of media companies and studios. The video attacking The Man and championing writers’ rights appeared on The Huffington Post, a busy Web site built on this business plan: hundreds of bloggers who post there aren’t paid.
Blind Item (via UnitedHollywood.com)
Which of five networks is said to have been forced to hire extra people to handle all the calls flooding in from angry fans demanding a fair deal for writers? Our source says an assistant to the CEO of the network's parent company contacted a fan site that posted the CEO's phone number and pleaded, "What do I have to do to get you people to stop this?"

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