No matter what you write, or where you publish, your content is going to migrate online.

The long and winding road of the Writers Guild of America has now come to a yield sign. They signed a contract with the studios on the basis of residuals that will be paid to them, some of which only begin after 2010. But they did have a qualified win.

Interestingly, this week, another group is negotiating how their “work” might be remunerated. Faculty members at Harvard University are voting on on a proposal that will allow the university to push their scholarship through online distribution methods online for the princely sum of … free! They could opt-out, of course.

And also this week, BurrellesLuce has called for a a copyright compliance standard for PR firms that may otherwise unwittingly violate intellectual property rights when they distributes publishers’ content. It calls for charging “a small royalty” for delivering the online and print stories it selects for clients.

If we have learned something from the Writers’ strike, it’s the value of (and price we should put on) content. We have sipped the “information wants to be free” cocktail too long and have never questioned what the real price of “free” is.

OK, so YouTube wants to be free, and the New York Times online wants to be free, but writers need to be paid and nurtured, and have a motivation to go after or craft the content that needs brainstorming, travel, teamwork and publishers who appreciate their endeavor. It depends on the definition of “small royalty,” but and it ought to be settled across a table not a picket line.
If not, everything from research to sitcoms will be diluted –to refill our freebie cocktails, maybe.