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Do you really want random people rewriting your script?

Screenwriter John August, writing about Amazon.com’s new movie studio:

Several readers have written to ask my take on all this. I won’t conjecture about anything beyond what’s on the press release and website, but I’m left with some pretty big questions. I have a hunch other screen-bloggers will be tackling some of the glaring ones, like copyright, authorship and the 18-month free option. So I’ll just ask one: Do you really want random people rewriting your script?

In software development, the open source movement has succeeded in bringing teams of strangers together. But writing code is a lot different than writing a screenplay. A bad line of code is obvious; it doesn’t do what it needs to do. A bad line of dialogue is a judgement call. A thumbs-up, thumbs-down voting system isn’t likely to fix this.