For certain is death for the born,
Therefore over the inevitable
Thou shouldst not grieve.
Bhagavad Gita (250 BC - 250 AD), Chapter 2

It seemed inevitable to me: writers wallowing in picket lines would realize they don't need studios anymore. Seems it just took a couple months break from the fat Hollywood checks for writers to wake up. They're finally arriving at the rather obvious conclusion that writers should be by-passing the studios altogether and developing programs directly, and distributing them online, thereby retaining creative control and probably a heck of a lot of the potential money. (See, I'm still calling it potential money, but watch how quickly that "potential money" turns into gazillions--things move lightning fast in the digital era. I'm wagering within 15 months, we'll see the first instance of some new online dramatic or comedy series that ends up generating enough ad dollars to pay creators as much money as they'd make on any Network series.)

Fact is, writers are smart enough to realize that it might be stupid to fight with studios over a tiny percentage of Internet re-broadcast royalties when the future of television is the Internet itself, and writers can simply create their own content--indeed create their own studios--alongside creative producers and directors. Where's the money for production going to come from? Venture capital, that's where.

This article in the LA Times describes the first rumblings of such deal-making by writers. Believe me, it's the beginnings of an avalanche (on the studios) and a liberating revolution for artists. Ironically, the studios' petty fight over the pennies they don't want to pay to writers for Internet re-broadcasts will probably be the smelling salts that wake writers up to the fact they're now working in unnecessary servitude. Writers worth their union-card should take the risk and truly own the content they create, reaping the rewards too.