Dave might know a thing or two about tech (although that is debatable) but he doesn’t know a thing about the entertainment industry.
[I]n this case, the execs, the nemesis of the Internet, seem to be taking the side of the Internet. They can’t promise the writers a share of the money they make on the Internet because they don’t see how they’re going to make money on the Internet. How can you share something that doesn’t exist??
I have a sneaking suspicion that Dave was trying to see how many absurdly ignorant statements he could cram into two sentences. If, in fact, the entertainment industry didn’t know how to make money off of the internet, and wasn’t making money now, they would gladly give the writers a larger share of nothing to get them back in their cubes. The execs would be getting something for nothing. What’s more likely is that the execs are making money on the internet and have a plan for how to make more, and they want to keep it for themselves.
For another thing, it’s not just the “new media” (which is a catch-all provision that tends to cover everything less common than DVD sales) contract clauses which are up for debate. So, too, is the DVD residual rate and calculation clauses… surely Dave doesn’t think that people aren’t making money on DVDs right now.