DISQUS

Did you write this before or after the Kayne West rant?

I think that the entertainment biz, especially the music biz, is generally recession-proof. when times are good, people spend money on such things. when times are bad, they cut out vacations instead of movies.

I am one of only two people that i know that thought The Dark Knight was a mediocre film. The only redeemable element for me was Ledger's performance and that was the main reason that i went to see it. I don't regret spending the $10, though. I guess the point that I'm making is that there are often a lot of reasons why people see movies on a big screen. Putting Clooney and Pitt up there seems as good as any.

Good advice.

Beautiful eulogy! It demonstrates how impactful seemingly mundane events can have in one's life. One just needs to be able to see the significance.

Smart...good
Dumb...bad

David fails to take one important factor into consideration. For the past year, the labels have been doing just what he wants them to do. They have opened up DRM, licensed new, innovative services (like iMeem and LaLa) and have even teamed up with DiMA in the recent copyright rate battles. It used to be the services vs. the labels.

But now, the bottleneck is being caused by the publishers and not the labels. They are relying on antiquated royalty formulae which do not mesh with the new business models being proposed on the web. Since labels are typically responsible for publisher royalty payments traditionally (e.g., mechanicals), they are beholden to the royalty schema that our present copyright laws dictate and which the publishers hide behind.

There is a major battle being fought about the future of copyright royalties. DiMA and the labels have proposed rate structures similar to the ideas that David suggest.

So, I think that he's off the mark.

the question for me is would the writers have achieved a better deal if they deferred on negotiating a new contract for a year or two? I think that by then, the industry will have a decent, working, business model for downloading movies and TV shows. right now, things are too experimental and no one knows what strategy is going to make the best money.

so, if the WGA renewed their old deal for a short term and didn't obligate themselves to any long-term royalty deal for such downloads, I think that they would have been a much better place to get their royalty structure. It's always easier to discuss a revenue stream that is established versus a theoretical one.

Your column could have been titled "Why most people hate lawyers?" I think that Barrios describes the general belief that most people have that lawyers are not deal makers. Rather, in many cases, they represent an impediment to a win-win conclusion of most negotiations. It seems that in many high-stakes situations, most lawyers aim for a zero-sum gain situation.