Fair Trade Media

With the talks between the WGA and the AMPTP evidently at a stand-still (and I wonder how much of this is just people not wanting to "deal" during the holidays??) United Hollywood has posted the WGA's response to the AMPTP in halting the negotiations.

My thoughts have turned to how I continue to pursue my career in a way that works for me not only as a producer but as a content creator as well. How do I blend these two sometimes competing segments of my business? How do I "play fair" and value the creative contributions of my colleagues while also generating a revenue stream for myself? What should we do? What should we charge for our services when our creative output is now able to live on in seemingly endless iterations, in perpetuity throughout all media known and unknown, in the universe? (And you may laugh at that statement but it's paraphrasing a clearance form that 20th Century Fox has used for years in it's film and television productions) What is fair to pay for the fruits of someone's creativity? How does the concept of collaborative media with many "authors" become monetized? How do we make enough money to live our lives off of an "open source" paradigm?

I'm inviting another blogger, the Urban Ichthyosapien to join me in this discussion and also open it up to anyone else who wants to put their 2 cents in. (In Euro or Canadian only please, they're worth more than US now, since even drug dealers have abandoned the greenback dollar.)

There's no immediately forseeable end to the strike. But let this be a unique opportunity to think about the future of the business of creativity. I'm eager to engage in that discussion.