In America, come sapete, c'è il rischio che la categoria degli autori entri in sciopero, ecco il punto della situazione.
Dal New York Times online
As Writers’ Strike Looms, Stakes Are Higher for TV Than Film By Edward Wyatt
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 17 — At lunch in Hollywood last Thursday, Neal Baer, an executive producer of the NBC hit “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” got a telephone call from North Bergen, N.J., where the series is filmed.
An actor on the set of a forthcoming episode of that popular series wanted to change a line of dialogue. To do so he needed the permission of Mr. Baer, who as the show runner of “Special Victims Unit” is the writer and producer who has final say over the program’s scripts and production.
Movie executives generally consider screenwriters to be expendable. But television writers - and particularly the writer-producers who serve as show runners - wield considerable power over a television show, so much so that it often is not clear where their writing duties end and their producing duties begin.
That has big implications if Hollywood writers go on strike next month. Certainly Mr. Baer and the dozens of other producers who also serve as writers on some of television’s biggest hits, and are members of the writers’ union, would not be able to do at least half of their jobs. Whether they could perform any of their duties - or whether most television shows would have to shut down production almost immediately - is an open question.
All of which makes the immediate stakes far higher for television networks than for movie studios, with the writers’ unions - the Writers Guild of America, both West and East - scheduled to announce on Thursday whether their members have voted to authorize a strike when their contract expires on Oct. 31.
In the film business, once a script is completed and turned in, screenwriters rarely are intimately involved on the set with the production of a film. As such, film producers have been stockpiling scripts in anticipation of a writers’ strike.
Television series operate with more of a just-in-time approach to script inventory, however, with the writers, who are employees of a television series, often stepping in to make changes to a script between scenes on the set.
While some series started shooting earlier than usual last summer, few are expected to have more than a half-dozen new episodes taped before a strike begins. That has caused studios to order more reality shows, because those shows do not employ union writers. Some networks have also ordered early production of pilots for new series for the fall of 2008, in case a strike interferes with planning for next season. While some writer-producers say they believe they could perform one job function without the other, others say they cannot.
“If there’s a strike, I do neither,” said Matt Olmstead, the writer-producer who is the show runner for Fox’s “
Prison Break.” “I walk out.”
Stephen McPherson, the president of ABC Entertainment, said in an interview on Tuesday that because of the guidelines that the Writers Guild has put out regarding what it expects from its members in the case of a strike, he believes that most of the network’s big scripted shows, including "Grey’s Anatomy” and “Desperate Housewives”, would have to shut down production almost immediately in the event of a strike.
“If there were scripts fully written, then normally they would be able to supervise them,” he said of the show runners. “But as per the new rules or guidelines they put out, they’re saying that’s not O.K.”
The Writers Guild of America West, the larger of the two writers’ groups that are negotiating with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers - that is, the film and television studios - is encouraging that more militant stance.
As part of a set of “strike rules” it circulated to its members this week, the guild said that in addition to being prohibited from writing new dialogue, writer-producers will be prohibited from changing “technical or stage directions,” and from making “changes in the course of production as are made necessary” by the weather, accidents or other “unforeseen contingencies.”
In addition the guild said it “strongly believes” that its members should not even show up for work “for any purpose” at a production where its writers are on strike.
In the minds of some show runners that leaves them in a quandary.
“As a writer I’m labor,” said one show runner, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified because he was unsure what course he would take in the event of a strike. “But I also handle a lot of issues on behalf of the people who we are negotiating with,” overseeing budgets, casting and hiring actors, and controlling the pace of production.
During the last Hollywood writers’ strike, which lasted for five months in 1988, it was the show runners who played a major role in ending the walkout, in part through their threat to secede from the writers’ union, according to news reports at the time.
Those show runners - also known as “hyphenates” because of their dual roles - often own production companies that are under contract with television studios, which are themselves often owned by the networks. Some writer-producers have privately expressed nervousness that if they do not come to work in any capacity, they could be in violation of their broader contracts and risk losing their production deals, which are essentially retainers that typically pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
Show runners are playing a far bigger role in the early negotiations this year than they did in 1988, when the Writers Guild limited their ability to serve on the union’s negotiating committee, citing their potential conflict of interest.
This time around several writer-producers are members of the union’s 17-person negotiating committee, including Mr. Baer; Marc Cherry, the creator of “Desperate Housewives”; and Carlton Cuse, an executive producer of “Lost.”
Even if the writers go on strike at the end of the month, most scripted series will not immediately find themselves without new episodes. Because they have been filming since mid-summer, many series have completed enough work to provide them with new episodes through the end of the year.
On the Fox hit “House,” for example, the producers expect that they will be able to start shooting the season’s 11th episode by the end of this month, said David Shore, the writer-producer who oversees the series. That episode is currently scheduled to be broadcast on Jan. 8, although if there is a strike, the network might rerun some episodes to try to stretch its new installments into February, a sweeps month.
“I will work as a producer for as long as we have stuff to produce,” Mr. Shore said. “I won’t be working as a writer. That means we won’t have any new scripts coming along. As I see it, should there be a strike, we won’t have any choice but to shut down shortly after.”(Fonte) 
Insomma, contano di cominciare le riprese dell'episodio 11 per la fine di ottobre, messa in onda prevista 08.01.2008. Se ci dovesse essere lo sciopero David Shore continuebbe a lavorare in quanto produttore ma aderirebbe alla protesta degli autori non scrivendo una riga.
Avrò scritto una sciocchezza dopo l'altra, moky uuuu salvami tuuuuu
Incrociamo le dita... di tempo fino al 31 ce ne è ancora un bel po' e non credo che le major vorranno perdere la faccia e con quella i soldi degli "inserzionisti" (febbraio è uno dei mesi sweeps)
" Wilde
Sai che perdita se Grey's e Private Practice chiudono...