Hollywood writers near strike

Hollywood writers near strike over royalties on new technology | CNET News.com

I'm sorry, but just why do these writers think they should get paid continuously for work done once? I mean do the designers at Ford get paid for every car sold? Do most people get paid repeatedly for work they do once? I sure don't.

The whole "royalty" concept is going to hurt us if we don't control it. I don't see why there "artists" think they are different from the rest of us workers. Why should their "x days of labor" drive repeated income while my day's labor earns just a day's salary. I guess it's good work if you can get it, but it's ridiculous.

But in a way I don't blame them, movies and TV shows are way over priced and the money really should go to the "talent" and not to executives at media companies. But that's a different issue. The price all trickles down to us consumers.

Luckily things are changing -- because there are other ways to distribute TV shows now and the "networks" and "media" companies are becoming less and less important.

But it still sounds greedy to me. They want to be paid over and over for writing a funny joke once, where as I get paid once of anything I write at work. Doesn't seem fair to me...

More after the Jump....


Updated 11/3
I've been thinking about this more and more. Running a camera certainly takes talent and skill, and some might even call it an art. But I wonder if the camera operators get a cut of every DVD they sold? I doubt it.

Again I ask, WHY are the writers different?