Right now management is investing and experimenting in business models that may help writers later. They are buying companies, building infrastructure, etc. Isn’t it “fair” that writers should be willing to contribute to that?
Steve – writers are contributing by offering to sell the results of the talent that they’ve worked hard to develop at a reasonable price. It’s the conglomerates that are being unreasonable, ruthless capitalists (please note here that I did not say “producers” – many of the real producers have been or will soon be put out of work by the Writers’ Strike).
And while I am not one of these “writers with time on their hands,” as you so condescendingly put it, I am above-the-line talent – an actor – and we know that, as it goes with the writers, so it will go with us. As someone who has spent the last seven years on the doubly difficult tasks of trying to eck out an existence in the crazy world of Hollywood while also working on making my “star rise,” I would humbly suggest that you leave your intellectual middle-America ivory tower and spend a few years here, pursuing work as “talent,” before you claim to understand the intricacies of the issues associated with the Writers’ Strike. Heck, it might even change your perspective on media conglomerates.
