Say Goodbye To Hollywood?

Marc Andreessen has written the most insightful analysis of the writers' strike that I've seen. It's a must read. He argues that the big studios are in a suicidal battle and that a new Hollywood will likely be reborn, along the lines of Silicon Valley, where writers and actors own the content and distribute it widely and freely over the Internet.

Here is one key passage that neatly summarizes the short-run economic issue that triggered the strike:

Due to amazing historical circumstances around the birth of the VCR in the early 1980's, television and movie writers are currently paid approximately 4 cents for each DVD sold -- bearing in mind that the average sale price for a DVD is over $10, and the cost of manufacturing a DVD is less than 50 cents. The writers want that residual rate doubled to 8 cents per DVD, and the studios are refusing.

Currently, writers are not paid for Internet downloads via online video stores like iTunes and Amazon Unbox. The studios want to extend the current 4-cent DVD residual formula to Internet downloads; the writers are holding out for more.

As always, there is a Law of Unintended Consequences: the strike is keeping writers away from the keyboard and preventing them from writing yet more stuff that's guaranteed to keep moviegoers away from the theaters.

Comments

[spencer]

Hollywood and silicon valley have something in common that few other industries have. That is that workers are typically hired by a firm for a single project and have no long term ties to that firm.

This is the reason that unions in Hollywood play a much different role than union in other industries.

The surprise to me is that silicon valley and software
developers have not copied the Hollywood model for unions.

[Steve Diamond]

Marc Andreesen misunderstands the nature of Hollywood talent: most of the actors, writers and directors actually believe in the creative work they produce - they see themselves (rightly in my view) as artists, not entrepreneurs. This is a very different view of one's own labor. Thus, Hollywood talent will always prefer to organize a union to represent the "business" side of sale, distribution and protection of their intellectual property. That does not mean that Hollywood talent ought not to pay attention to the Valley - in fact, the guilds ought to be engaging in organizing here of creative talent and engaging in negotiations with distributors like Apple over the compensation of their work. In that sense, they can and should move beyond the studio bottleneck.

[UGG Classic Mini Boots]

That does not mean that Hollywood talent ought not to pay attention to the Valley - in fact, the guilds ought to be engaging in organizing here of creative talent and engaging in negotiations with distributors like Apple over the compensation of their work. In that sense, they can and should move beyond the studio bottleneck.

[ed hardy]

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[abercrombie]

This could probably have the refactoring tag added t it.