Ad-Supported Streaming: Point/Counterpoint

This was submitted by WGA member and StrikeSwag founder Tom Smuts.

Based on blog comments and conversations I've had, many members seem to think that the so-called "Initial Streaming Window" is just another way for the Companies to screw the Writers. It isn't. Not in principle, anyway.

In principle, it's a way for the Companies to capture some of the audience that would have watched the show

Just wanted to mention this, after reading Phil Alden Robinson's piece:

As someone who works almost exclusively as a screenwriter, here's why I reject the idea I hear often that "this is a TV writers strike."

It's true that the streaming numbers don't affect screenwriters now -- but in the future, new means of delivering content, including movies, are going to be invented. Will we get 1.2% of

To Our Fellow Members:Yesterday, the WGAW and WGAE presented to the AMPTP a response to its proposal on streaming television programs.We accepted the framework in their proposal of last Thursday for a fixed residual in the first year.

By Ed Decter (WGA member, Pet Rock owner)

Long ago, in the era before digital streaming and video on demand, I was one of those kids who saved his allowance and bought a Pet Rock. I remember my father putting on his bifocals to examine the cardboard box with the built-in handle, the little nest of straw and the egg-sized gray stone. My dad sighed then said, “The guy who thought of this is

This is the letter that was just sent to the membership:AMPTP BREAKS OFF NEGOTIATIONSToday, after three days of discussions, the AMPTP came back to us with a proposal that included a total rejection of our proposal on Internet streaming of December 3.

The WGA Negotiating Committee, on behalf of the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), today issued the following statement regarding Contract 2007 negotiations:

A close friend of my husband's has died. It was an unexpected and therefore shocking death. Although this friend lived far away and my husband only saw him perhaps once a year, they had emailed each other nearly every day for many years. The sudden absence of that daily conversation has accentuated the loss.

MLB is clearly concerned about my/its downloading problem -- or, more likely, about the uniformly negative attention it received today. I received an email from a VP of Communications at MLB this afternoon and was part of a conference call this evening.

This letter went out to the WGA membership this evening. Onward and upward...To Our Fellow Members:

In the coming days, we'll be running pieces on the proposed contract.

We'll include our own takes on what's good and bad, the official "pro" and "con" statements that will be issued by the Guild, and -- we hope -- op-ed pieces submitted to us here by readers.

Feel free to submit your analyses of the deal points and your opinions about the contract to unitedhollywood@gmail.com. We won't be able

Time seems so speeded up — another Christmas already! Sometimes I can't believe how quick things are going. Don't feel I've done enough these past twelve months to mark off another year just yet. I'm here though, surviving, hopefully putting the peices of my life back together again. What I'm not doing so well with at the moment, is with emails — in replying to them.

(The following is a letter from the presidents.)To Our Fellow Members: