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Re-queueing this video for one more try; last queued Monday, January 14th, 2008 4:50pm PST - requeue requested by submitter Zifnab.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

I sure hope they win.

If those execs aren't complete morons, they'll cave for now at least. We all want our Lost dammit! I'd spot some cash right now to get things back on the air if it were so simple.

I recently heard a computer programmer comment on this strike, and he said he thought the execs ought eventually to try to seek the deal that software companies have with programmers, that is: You write the code we pay you to write, then we own it, period. Salary... or per instance, but no profit sharing. Once you wrote what we paid you to write, it is ours... Outside of the traditional "arts", that is the way that business works.

On the other hand perhaps the "new arts" (those being programing and game-making perhaps) ought to seek the deal Hollywood has. heh.

Which way do we want things to go? thoughts?

Obviously there is no programmers' union... If there were then they would have a deal that pays them extra for successful products, Similar to the Hollywood deal. EVERY job needs a union. It is the only way for workers to get a fair deal.
-Karl

Maher makes an excellent point -- a strike could lead to this bleak scenario:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-altschuler20dec20,0,6519302.story

What's different between this strike and the one 19 years ago is the studios' corporate financial backing: they can weather a strike much more comfortably than before so they could outlast the writers if they had to.

More to the point, what does everyone lose by letting the strike go on? I don't feel either side has adequately considered those consequences. Sickened by the excess of reality TV programming, will viewers finally break their addiction to network and cable TV? Will viewers instead turn to the internet as their preferred platform to view content? Will A-list writers abandon their studio jobs to write for a new internet TV network? The strike will have accelerated each these scenarios.

Actually Doc you make an excellent point and i know no one will ever see this comment but here it goes. You can argue that oh the programmers need a union then or its "art" but really they are paying for a service. As a producer i want you to produce something and i pay you for the product. The idea of paying you for it from now on doesnt make sense to me (though i know its unfair). But think about it, a hand crafted rocking chair can be a work of art, but once ive payed for it its mine. Food can be prepared with beautiful time consuming detail but i dont pay royalties on it. Now you might say "well they are making money off my product". Ok well i buy a car, or a camera, or a computer. Now i cant rent that out to people to make money, so should i pay a percentage of that profit back to the makers of those products that i have already payed for? I mean those are sophisticated works of art. What about workers who remodel the entrance to your restaurant or hotel to make it gorgeous so that patrons will flood in and increase business. Do they deserve royalties from future profits, because obviously it was their work that brought people in? Im just wondering where do you draw the line of who deserves to be constantly payed for a service while others get the shaft, and if you think everyone should be constantly paid and agree that every example i made fits that model do you really think anyone could afford it?