Late last week, I mentioned that the Horror Writers of America had expressed solidarity with the Writers Guild of America. As it happens, their statement was crafted from a template that goes back at least as far as the Science Fiction Writers of America's earlier show of support. But SFWA president Michael Capobianca's statement actually goes on for another three paragraphs, in which he contextualizes the issue of providing benefits to writers for the digital distribution of their work: "It's as if book publishers of the early twentieth century had told authors that movies would be made out of their books, but they shouldn't get any money because the movies wouldn't be profitable and were being made just to promote the sale of books."

For Capobianco, the issue is simple. "If the work is used on the Internet in any way, the writer should be fairly compensated," he writes. "This is a fundamental writers' right, and it's worth fighting for. WGA is staking its claim on the future, and SFWA supports it wholeheartedly."