I agree. It's interesting to be talking so much about the Internet when in fact we don't yet have a fungible business model across the entire spectrum of that platform. People are anticipating it, but there is no question that there is content circulating on it.
I think the answer is a little more complex. Given that there is content circulating on this platform, how is it going to become fungible? How do we control the use or the consumption of that content on a medium that's become expert at evading traditional controls?
The real answer is that content creators don't exist without remuneration, and the remuneration is broken down into two components: their labour, for which they're paid on the spot, and their authorship, which constitutes an ongoing economic relationship with that work long after it's disseminated into the marketplace.
What we're seeing with the Internet and with new media generally is a radical foreshortening of that ongoing economic relationship with the work once it's disseminated. That has huge implications for creators sitting at home trying to get their next work made and for creators going out into the labour force looking for a proper fee for their work. Producers who can't recover that money in the marketplace will turn around and offer less for the labour and for the authorship. The Directors Guild thinks the dollar number attached to the authorship should continue to be a reality in legal terms and in economic terms as we go forward into this new Wild West we're dealing with.
