CULVER CITY, November 7, 2007 - About 45 WGA members formed a picket line outside Culver Studios today in Culver City. It has been 20 years since the last time the writers went on strike and they were clearly out of practice. For many it was their first time on a picket line. The strikers made no attempt to hold the line and people crossed freely in and out of the studio lot.

It seems that holding a line is not their strategy at this point. It is thought that the power to withhold scripts and new content from the studios and their corporate owners will bring the suits back to the bargaining table. The strike has already caused many producers to scale back their production plans for the year.

The two sides are said to be very far apart on the central issue of a writer’s share of profits from internet broadcast material so it could be a long strike.

there are important things going on in this city than a WGA strike. Who gives a fuck?

The strike is important because of the economic impacts, and for establishing royalty rates for internet distribution. The internet part matters because the previously separated sectors (which had their own organizations and agreements) -- television, movies, music, books, magazines, newspapers, radio -- become reconfigured into three media of home internet, public internet, and wireless internet mobile devices. These create a pervasive media environment that exists everywhere (within urbanized societies), and the total amount of media will increase.

Secondarily, the value of advertising will increase, because technologies to focus specific ads to individuals will make ads more effective. The value of pay-per-view will also increase, and the net amount of "piracy" will decrease over time, compared to today.

The writers need a fair deal.

I meant to say the rate of piracy will decline, compared to today. The net amount will increase, but more will be paid.

It started in 1995 when the Federal Communications Commission abolished its long-standing "finsyn" rules (that's financial interest and syndication, for those unfamiliar with the term), allowing networks for the first time to own the programs they broadcast. Before that, under classic antitrust definitions, the networks had been confined to the role of broadcaster, paying a license fee to production companies for the right to broadcast programs just two times. The production companies owned all subsequent rights. In the mid-1990s there were 40 independent production companies making television shows. If a particular network didn't like a show -- as famously happened with "The Cosby Show" many years ago -- the production company could take it to another network.

But not after 1995. The abolition of the old rules set in motion an ineluctable process, one that has negatively affected every creative person I know in television. Today there are zero independent production companies making scripted television. They were all forced out of business by the networks' insistence -- following the FCC's fin-syn ruling -- on owning part or all of every program they broadcast.

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