philly

The Writers Guild of America strike of 2007-2008 has had its first victory and the first party from the other side to recognize the writers deserve their share is a guy I've liked for a really long time. This NY Times article reports on David Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company, which owns the rights to "The Late Show With David Letterman" and "The Late, Late Show" [translation: CBS does not own the shows], has reached an agreement with the WGA.

"The Late Show" goes back on the air Wednesday night with it's full staff of writers. That will give them some sort of leg up on the competition: Leno and Kimmel. But that's not what really matters. What "The Late Show" did is an important first step in the process of bringing the rest of the shows back on the air and getting the writers what they deserve. Letterman's a bit of a loose cannon. He's not exactly fond of his management. His last few years on NBC were, um, ugly to say the least. It was sort of like Howard Stern's deteriorating relationship with his people. While this agreement is a positive gesture towards the WGA, it's a huge fuck you middle finger to CBS.

And then there's the RIAA. The fuckers who are, according to this WaPo article, saying that

"when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,' "
-Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser

The RIAA must be made up entirely of goat sucking douchebags for some bullshit like that come come out of the mouth of the chief of litigation of one of the largest record companies in the world. This recent statement has lead to a shitload of criticism from all angles. The people will win this fight because the argument the RIAA is making is just too absurd.

But when will the big heavy hitters come out in support of the people getting sued? The millionaires to take on the legal fees. The millionaire artists who are now free from their record label shackles. The titians of industry who can make a difference. I read one blog post calling for Steve Jobs to get off his ass and take a stand. His most popular product relies on people making use of digital music files on portable players transferred via a computer (that's 2 "illegal" copies). That would be nice. I'd cheer his black turtleneck and jeans wearing ass along the way.

Those big names with the most to lose may very well jump on board after the crucial battle is won and will be remembered after the fact as the ones who pushed it all over the top. I hope that they're remembered for getting on board and doing some of the work to get to the summit.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 @ 1:46 am. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or trackback from your own site. Your comments will be moderated [if you have never previously commented] but will appear as soon as humanly possible.