oh come on wga

i've never really liked unions (especially after having a bad experience with them when working for a grocery store). it's not that i disagree with them in principle - companies are prone to exploit workers in some industries - but the reality of many of them is that they place ridiculous and overly-expensive restrictions on business and individuals and can be very corrupt.

despite this i marched in support of the wga writers and blogged in support of them.

and then they turn around and do this:

"On the MSN.com edition of “Motherhood” (since discontinued), short segments about funny, frazzled mothers were inspired by the real-life stories that viewers submitted via an Internet forum. ABC, similarly, asked for story submissions on its Web site (itm.abc.go.com) and said that they “might just become inspiration for a story by the writers.”

But ABC’s call for ideas from moms drew the attention of the Writers Guild of America, which said this type of request for submissions was “not permissible” under its contract with the network. This week ABC abruptly removed the language about “inspiration” from its Web site, effectively saying that the writers may not be listening to viewers’ ideas, after all.

The last-minute changes are a telling demonstration of the differences between the Web video world — a mostly low-budget, short-form medium — and the traditional television industry."

really? what's wrong with getting ideas from the general public? ideas aren't copyrightable. does the wga really think it's writers aren't constantly getting ideas from the public around them? this is ridiculous and indicative of the type of inflexibility unions are famous for.