Archive for May 11th, 2007

As Residuals Fizzle

Posted May 11, 2007 By Dave Thomer

Someone asked J. Michael Straczynski if he was getting any financial benefit from the repurposing of Babylon 5 as DVDs, iTunes files, and so on. His answer:

Not a gripe, just an answer…as writer, creator and EP I have never
received anything from the DVD sales, Itunes, AOL, bittorrent,
soundtracks or any other form of video distribution on B5.

This is one of the reasons why there’s almost certainly going to be a
writer’s strike this year.

I’ve seen John Rogers at Kung Fu Monkey express similar sentiments. And I can’t say I blame any writer for thinking this way. The economics of entertainment has a lot of catching up to do.