The Writers Guild of America is on strike.

There are a bunch of issues between the writers and the studio bosses, but the main sticking point is money. As the entertainment industry shifts to new media like the Internet, writers feel they should get a cut of the profit. And while most writers see a bit of profit from DVD sales, they get nothing if somebody downloads a movie off iTunes.

Blah, blah, blah.

But how does this affect the poor college students like yourself? Well, for right now, it doesn’t. Shows that put out new content on a nightly basis, like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, have been forced to go on hiatus. But movies have their scripts written far before filming even begins, so at worst, a few releases next year will be pushed back a few months.

As much as I hate going without Stephen Colbert, I can see the writers’ point. Within ten years, we’ll probably be getting all of our movies off the Internet. I can hop on iTunes and download nearly any movie I want. As this technology becomes refined and more popular, it’ll probably supplant DVDs much like mp3s replaced CDs. It only makes sense that the writers, whose role in the moviemaking process gets very little credit compared to actors and directors, see some kind of profit for their effort.

I didn’t really appreciate screenwriters for most of my movie-watching career. Most people don’t. For me, the director is the man who truly left his mark on any film. And then I saw Adaptation. Charlie Kaufman comes through so much in the film (maybe it’s because it’s about writing a movie) that it wouldn’t have mattered who directed it – that story was his own.

Hollywood’s facing a lot of problems – declining box office numbers, pirating and a lack of originality in new projects. With some really quality movies opening in the past couple weeks (Gone Baby Gone, American Gangster) and what looks like even more coming up, (No Country For Old Men, The Kite Runner, There Will Be Blood, Sweeney Todd), it looked like movies were making a comeback. So studio bosses need to settle this strike soon if they want to maintain this streak of hotness.

Massive strikes just suck for everyone. The writers don’t get paid. They have to picket and they’re subject to bad paparazzi photos like the one in the Globe on Tuesday. (Poor Tina Fey… she doesn’t even like rats.) The studios are faced with a scheduling nightmare. And audiences lose gems like The Daily Show.

So let’s give the writers their due. These guys aren’t spoiled Hollywood brats. Their salaries aren’t extravagant, and at the end of the day their credit is mostly ignored. I think it’s gonna take a big strike like this for Hollywood to see what their missing. When the studio executives look at what they’ve got in the pipeline and see a bunch of scripts of the Daddy Day Camp variety, they’ll make amends with the writers. Let’s just hope it’s sooner rather than later. After all, Colbert needs to plug his campaign. Come on North Carolina.