[Roderick Usher]

1 issue - New Media

Currently the studios are making movies available for download with writers receiving exactly 0% of the profits.

It is the future of media and to be cut out of the loop at it's inception will screw writers forever. Not to mention directors, who will likely model their stake of these profits on the WGA's model.

and then there's how my pal David J Stieve (writer of Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon) put it:

Time Warner:
Revenues--$44 billion
Profit--$6.53 billion
CEO Richard Parsons' 2006 pay: $12. 95 million. Five-year pay haul: $45.36 million. Stock options value: $14.2 million (at April 2007 prices)

Disney:
Revenues--$35 billion
Profit--$4.34 billion
CEO Robert Iger's 2006 pay: $29.93 million plus $8.8 million stock options

News Corp.:
Revenues--$26.74 billion
Profit--$3.34 billion
Boss Rupert Murdoch's 2006 pay: $25.91 million. Five-year pay haul: $86.42 million. Stock: since he owns the company, his stock is worth $8.7 billion

CBS:
Revenues--$14.32 billion
Profit--$1.66 billion
CEO Leslie Moonves 2006 pay: $24.86 million. Five-year pay haul: $63.43 million. Stock options: $30 million.

Murdoch's is my favorite. His stock option alone (just one guy out of all of the corporate bigwigs involved) is more than 120 times greater than the ENTIRE PACKAGE the writers are asking for. And all of these profits depend on content that writers create! Writers are the wellspring from which these corporate giants siphon their cash! As one blogger commented, "when was the last time you watched a movie written by Rupert Murdoch?"

PLEASE, PLEASE don't be fooled by the "Big Oil" mentality and spin-doctoring the corporate giants put out there. There is nothing you "don't understand" about the costs of doing business.

It is, like so many other facets of our society now, nothing more complicated that the extremely wealthy at the very very top of the buildings not wanting to give the people doing the real work their fair share. Not even a fair share, but a meek increase in pay.

There are no "complicated revenue structures or costs" that you don't understand. There is only unchecked, rampant greed.