New Media and the Writer's Strike

I've been on a Daily Show fast since the writer's strike. Now we're about to hit the end of the serials, so we'll be reduced to a strict diet of reality show gruel. Turns out producers were pushing for content so it could be stockpiled, in anticipation also of the Screen Actors Guild contract being up in June and facing similar concerns from them about being compensated for "new media" content. So what's it all about? From an article in liberal magazine The American Prospect, here's how Patric Verrone from the Writers Guild of America put it:

[Writers and actors] can get together and actually do media without these guys and get it delivered. It goes back to this quote from Frances Coppola about 12 years ago, where he said that he wasn't going to make the next Godfather, it was going to be some 7-year-old girl with a digital camera. But how was she going to distribute it? Well, now we have the answer. We now have this distribution model that really seriously impacts the ability of the conglomerates to control production and distribution. What can help them survive in that brave new world is collaboration with the content providers, and yet it seems as though a routine has developed where they would rather try to find the cheaper way or the non-union way, or an approach that cuts us out.

Better renew your library card.