That is of course the only fair way it could be done: a creator of content deserves compensation for all the ways in which that content is used or to be used, because the producers receive revenue from all of them. People have no problem with this notion with auto workers and the value of the cars they make: the workers are paid with full recognition that their products will be used to go 50,000 or 100,000 or more miles, and it is built into Detroit’s prices for the cars. Why should it be different for musicians, composers, songwriters… and writers of TV content?
A very high percentage of the work product of American workers today is virtual, i.e., it exists as text, images, audio files or similarly intangible things. That does not make those products one bit less valuable (pun intended), but it does make them far easier to copy, and indeed to copy identically, either locally or somewhere else. There must be no free lunch regarding such copies and their distribution: content creators must be compensated. Period.
]]>At least your “pet” helps with the upkeep.
]]>But after a year of my devotion, they still won’t answer when I call them, let alone let me pet them. So I have a new pet.
I just brought her home from the Albertson’s, so I haven’t named her yet.
]]>When you have multibillion dollar corporations trying to rip off the people who actually create their products with penny pinching, it gets a little annoying. This is what media consolidation leads to – even Henry Ford understood it wouldn’t work.
]]>If I were a scab trying to cross a picket line and I saw that face I would turn and run for my life – not that I would ever cross a picket line of course. In solidarity with the WGA strikers I am not watching Dharma and Greg reruns or Fox News (not too difficult since Dharma and Greg was crap and I don’t get Fox News anyway!).
Jams O Donnell, PCS member in good standing
]]>Not knowing if the strike had been resolved, Stella turned on Jay Leno tonight. The episode was ancient; we abandoned it immediately. I will not support his advertisers, or those of any other show that depends on creative content, until WGA has been fairly treated in the matter of compensation for all distributions of their work. No free lunch: the creators of content must be fairly paid.
– Steve Bates, AFM Local 65-699 member in good standing.
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