In a development that should be news to no one but welcomed by all, the Writers Guild of America East and West are returning to work after a 100-day strike. This is absolutely fantastic news. It's great for consumers, naturally, but it's also great for the copyright movement to have two groups under its tent working together again.

The Copyright Alliance has some Hollywood unions in it, and it also has some movie and TV studios. Last June the Copyright Alliance joined with seven unions, including the Writers Guild of America West, to write Democratic leaders in Congress reminding them that the livelihoods of millions of Americans — including those union members, from screen actors to carpenters — relied on copyright industries. That letter was a reflection of the shared interests of writers and studios when it comes to copyright. In an age when some would show little respect for the art and craft that is a script or a motion picture, focusing far more on the "rights" of someone to remix the work than to make it to begin with, it's imperative that we work together to defend our rights as creators.

I spent six hard years of my life scraping together a living as a freelance writer. It's not easy, never sure where your next job is coming from, putting yourself out there for rejection time and again. When the strike began I could empathize with the writers and admired them for being able to make a go at something (writing) I eventually put aside as a full-time pursuit.

I'm not up on the particulars of the deal, but I gather they will gain some benefit from new revenue streams, and that's important. It's also important that the studios felt comfortable with this concession, because it does no good to concede to the point of no profit. At Midem in Cannes I kept hearing wannabe music platform providers demanding licensing terms from music rightsholders that would probably lead to a loss on every play or download for that rightsholder (but as was attributed to the Pets.com CEO during the dot-com boom, "We'll make it up in volume"). No point in offering concessions that will lead to no one making money.

Now I have to ask those writers to throw themselves back into their work. I've enjoyed watching CBS' the Late Late Show with Colin Ferguson, which had an exemption (although sometimes it seems the crazy Scot-turned-American-citizen is at his best in stream-of-consciousness rants that can't possibly be scripted). Now let's bring back the  Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, already back on the air but now with those shows' brilliant writers to help the brilliant hosts. I'd also like to beg NBC to press forward on making more episodes of Chuck, one of the funniest and most heartwarming shows to come along in a long, long time. I read there will be no more episodes this season; at least bring it back in the fall.

So in short, welcome back, writers, we missed you, congratulations on your ability to share in future revenue streams, now go make us laugh again!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 9:23 am by Patrick Ross and is filed under capitol hill, copyright opponents, creators, market forces. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.