I’ve said little on this, but I’ve found a couple of points online that I’d like to pass on. I’ll begin with Josh’s mini rant about the strike, from which the biggest takeaway to me is that consumers don’t really get anything out of this.

I take issue, however, with the rest of his characterization that the writers are somehow being unreasonable or that they shouldn’t be in unions. I think that’s a narrow interpretation of what the Writers Guild is about, and why they’re pushed to strike. The fact of the matter is that the union provides an important service, saving these writers from having to have a lawyer or agent negotiating individual residuals and rates on their deals. While the big guys are free to earn more, it keeps the writers for less popular shows from getting taken advantage of (or even worrying about residuals and royalty rates).

Atrios passed on a strike Q&A from Brian K. Vaughan, author of one of my favorite graphic novel series, Y: The Last Man. Some of his points summarize the situation pretty well:

***Why is the WGA striking?

Because writers believe we deserve a fair share of the revenue generated by the stuff we helped to create, crazy as that sounds.

There’s an excellent summary of what I consider to be our very reasonable demands at this blog, which has been a consistently dependable source of good information about the strike: http://www.unitedhollywood.com/

But basically, writers are looking to negotiate modest residuals and protections for use of our TV shows and movies on the internet, where most of us will likely be getting the majority of our entertainment from in the not-too-distant future.

We’re are also asking for a share of about 8 cents–that’s eight stinkin’ pennies–for every DVD of our work sold, as opposed to the criminally insane 4 cents we receive today.

I’d also point out, as Vaughan does, reality TV does employ writers.

And, in terms of how evil unions are, this union has offered to drop the 4 cents of DVD sales in negotiations. The studios? Not so interested in compromise.

In terms of making the case against the studios, I can’t do a better job than Ning’s Marc Andreessen:

So imagine you’re a major media mogul, a captain of the film and television business, a shaper of global culture, one of the anointed few who can green-light major entertainment projects.

You’re faced with a massive, once-in-a-lifetime shift in mainstream consumer behavior from traditional mass media, including film and television, to new activities that you do not control: the Internet, social networking, user-generated content, mobile services, video games. It’s been snowballing since the mid 90’s, for like 12 years — 12 years of denial and obfuscation — but it’s really rolling fast now.

…

Is this really the right time to pick a fight with the writers over royalties from DVD and Internet sales, leading to an industry-wide shutdown and massive economic pain for all sides in the world of traditional scripted film and television content?

Really?

If you’re a mogul, the key question has to be, what would the founders of my industry have done in this situation? Really, what would they have done? Thomas Edison, Darryl Zanuck, Jack Warner, Irving Thalberg, Adolph Zukor, David Selznick, Louis Mayer, David Sarnoff, Bill Paley, Walt Disney… presented with such a period of profound change and global market expansion, would they have declared war on the writers of all people or blamed Apple of all companies for their problems, or would they be charging ahead and developing new businesses, new forms of entertainment, new markets, and new sources of revenue?

In a nutshell, would they have crawled into a hole of protecting the status quo or would they be forging a new, exciting, optimistic future through force of will and creativity?

Why aren’t you doing what they would be doing?

That about sums up the situation. Downloads are an important growth area. The WGA is right to ask for compensation in an area where studios are showing off as growth areas and revenue sources. For example, all the studios are pushing TV episode viewing online in an ad supported model rather than the iTunes style purchase model. That’s not even mentioning things like ESPN360, World News Now, DOL, etc.) and all of the other studios’ efforts at growing an online distribution channel (Hulu anyone?).

Too often we forget that these studios are supposed to help with marketing and distribution. They have no intrinsically good role in content creation. The irony is that we’re railing against the WGA for a measly 0.6% royalty rate. That’s less than a penny per dollar you spend at the store. I can’t imagine what Lost or Heroes would be like without the same writers, and it seems amazing to me that they should get so little of the revenue.

Imagine if cofounders of startups or businesses only got 0.6% of the shares of their startups…

The FCC had public hearings on media consolidation where a number of Hollywood insiders, including actors, writers, producers, and musicians testified. This first day of hearings centered on “whether consolidation in the media has hurting the diversity of programming that Americans see and hear on the open airwaves.” CNET reports that “Of the producers and artists who testified in this first panel, the resounding answer to that question was a big ‘yes.’”

We’ll see what happens when representatives of the major studios and labels speak at future sessions. The article has some good background on how these hearings have come about.

I wonder if most Americans are aware of the extent to which consolidation has occurred in the marketplace. TV is pretty much completely owned by 4 companies: Disney, Viacom, NBC Universal (GE & Vivendi), and News Corp. Add a little bit of Time Warner and you’ve pretty much got every channel on my cable lineup. Movies and music are pretty much controlled by Vivendi, Sony, Time Warner. Disney and Viacom have some smaller holdings. It’s actually amazing how much these six companies control: Viacom/CBS, Disney, Sony, GE (with Vivendi), Time Warner, and News Corp.

If you’re interested in learning more, one of my favorite tools is Columbia Journalism Review’s Who Owns What. They have listings of just about every magazine, television station (e.g. WCAU, WPIX, etc.), cable and broadcast television network (ABC, CBS, FOX, HBO, etc.), radio station, radio network, record label, book publisher, and print journalism outlet and who owns them. Just look at the six companies I’ve highlighted above for some interesting reading. Although, they did break out CBS from Viacom for some reason that I can’t figure out yet.