I attended a meet-up today on the Open Media Web during which the presenter from Creative Commons commented on the irrelevance of whether record labels stay in business. Time will tell how many musicians will manage to make a living from music as a primary source of income, but, with the unlimited shelf space of the internet and the draw to making music, it seems certain there will be no shortage of music for us to enjoy.

As the WGA strike carries on, does the same logic apply to Hollywood? There’s certainly an abundance of video on the web. As the industry loses “share of attention” (and revenues) to web video, where does independent film-making fit into all this? Does a union still serve a purpose? Seeing as any video can find its way onto the unlimited shelf space of the internet (and our mail from Netflix), can working with producers willing to fairly compensate writers provide an attractive alternative to union bargaining with studios? (Despite the career benefits of striking reported on by Marketplace: the opportunity for less-established writers to network.)

For a humorous take, I enjoyed this inside report on the negotiations between screen writers and studios (as well as the text at the very bottom of that blogger’s site). My favorite line: “Bunch of smelly hippies, stealing our intellectual property is what the Internet is.”

(Some back and forth on Derek Powazek’s blog got me thinking about this.)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 at 12:24 am and is filed under music, film. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.