I just posted the following news story up at TheCinemaSource, which you can check out here. Next week kind of seems like the last good hope, unfortunately:

Closed-door talks have been going on for the past week between the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) and the Writer's Guild (WGA) - but unfortunately, little actual progress has been made.

The AMPTP presented a comprehensive deal to the WGA on Thursday with the understanding that the negotiations would pause for four days, until Tuesday, while the WGA considered the offer. However, it's been less than a day and the writers have already cried foul.

"It amounts to a massive rollback," WGA presidents Patric Verrone and Michael Winship said in a joint statement. Apparently, the first three days of the new negotiations were nothing more than a rehash of what had gone before, while the new deal presented yesterday "dealt only with streaming and made-for-Internet jurisdiction," meaning it ignored the writers' goals for DVD residuals, other new media, and downloading.

For their part, the writers were busy presenting an economic justification for their own proposals: "Our entire package would cost this industry $151 million over three years. That's a little over a 3% increase in writer earnings each year, while company revenues are projected to grow at a rate of 10%. We are falling behind."

On the other side of the table, the AMPTP's numbers were a little different. In their own statement, they said, "The entire value of the New Economic Partnership will deliver more than $130 million in additional compensation above and beyond the more than $1.3 billion writers already receive each year."

They also took a hard-to-miss potshot: "While we strongly preferred to continue discussions, we respect and understand the WGA’s desire to review the proposals."

While we here at TheCinemaSource have never claimed to be neutral on the subject - the writers, quite frankly, are the good guys - it's become increasingly harder to even present both sides of the argument. The AMPTP continually refuses to even acknowledge the WGA's asking points, even after the WGA takes a major proposal off the table like their DVD residual overhaul.

And while the AMPTP continues to act like the writers are the least important aspect of entertainment, TV shows run out of episodes, no new film scripts are being put in development, and crews are continually being laid off. Conan O'Brien made headlines yesterday when it was announced that he would pay - out of his own bank account - the salaries of his crew to prevent them from losing their jobs.

Most troubling is that time seems to be running out. After next week, the AMPTP may turn their attention toward the Directors Guild, which will be looking to negotiate a new contract soon as well.