Even a child can understand that the deal is just ‘not fair,’ says this writer

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‘Nobody really knows what’s going on now. It’s the nature of the beast,’ said Cyrus Voris (‘Sleeper Cell’), who has been working with writing partner Ethan Reiff on two pilots and a movie script--each of which would stop in the event of a strike. ‘Everyone is tense. In the absence of information, you make stuff up.’

The first three days of this week, they worked ‘crazy hours’ to finish a pilot draft that was turned in Wednesday to Warner Bros. ‘We were thinking that was it [the deadline,]’ he said. ‘Now we’re going back today.’ Even so, ‘The word was clean out your office today, just in case.’

For him, the primary issue in negotiations is residuals for Internet downloads. ‘ITunes didn’t exist three years ago,’ he said. Until recently all the talk about new media has been ephemeral, he said. ‘Are we going to draw a line in the sand for something that might happen? Now, it’s become a reality.

‘My kids don’t understand why I write something, they can download it on the Internet, and I don’t get paid for it. A child can understand it’s not fair.’

Technology is moving so fast, he said, that in five years networks could be streaming all their shows onto the Internet. ‘And will they say ‘We don’t owe you any money for that’? Eventually there will have to be some deal struck. Why not do it now?’

Most writers, he said, feel self-conscious about complaining about their jobs in an industry where many others would like to work.

‘People who finance [the shows] take advantage of that,’ he said.

--Lynn Smith