almanacofsleep (December 31, 1969 at 5:59 pm)

This seems to be a very american standpoint, don't agree with him completely, but Warner Bros can suck my dick on Wall Street.

subliteral (December 31, 1969 at 5:59 pm)

I've cheered Ellison's view on this matter for years. People who feel that being paid for your art is secondary or even wrong are foolish and detached from real life. This curious notion is a fairly recent deviation among creative people. It sets up a false value system where money represents evil and art is pure and untainted good. If you don't attach value to your work , no one else will either. What's evil is expecting to use someone's work without paying them. Let's get that straight.

Macleodking (December 31, 1969 at 5:59 pm)

There is something about writing that fails to register a dollar value in most people, yet everyone has bought a book at one time or another. Still, people cannot see the true value in writing because they cannot see the blood on the computer keys, the caffeine-induced headaches as you slave to make sense of your plot and characters, the endless hours of obsessive-compulsive rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. In this visual-intensive world of ours today, it's just paper and words.

bourbonbigshot (December 31, 1969 at 5:59 pm)

We live in a society where Wall Street and Hollywood fat cats milk the system without a shred of talent or professionalism or courtesy or decency, yet when the little guy who works for a living demands his fair share, he is frowned upon by everyone else! Winners or losers rather than wrong or right. Ellison is correct, people are being taken for a ride by soulless corporations. And they get hefty tax breaks and handouts while they screw the workers who deserve better.

bourbonbigshot (December 31, 1969 at 5:59 pm)

That is an EXCELLENT point. Hollywood bitches about video piracy while trying to rob its writers!

Machao6 (December 31, 1969 at 5:59 pm)

I agree with this. Its blaming the new/young members of your own industry I don't fall in with.

freakyrawen (December 31, 1969 at 5:59 pm)

He's so right, it's bullshit that companies expect people working for free. I'm reading some comments here saying writers are spoiled and ja-da-ja-da, sure maybe, but that doesn't mean that they have to work for free. No one works for free except slaves and we don't have slavery nowadays, now do we? The scariest thing is the fact that this bs goes for the whole business. Runners, grips and so on all have to work for free very often, just to get a foot in and that sucks.

drvids (December 31, 1969 at 5:59 pm)

never do anything for free if your good at it. Publicity? My ass, no one will come back to you at the end of the day...money first no matter what.

spanishprisoner (December 31, 1969 at 5:59 pm)

So are all the other industries. You do what you think you do best.

jennyrgar (December 31, 1969 at 5:59 pm)

so many groups that try to change try the appropriate way, you get angry when ur not heard and ur tired of it. and people hesitate when people get angry, just like a customer.