"After drawing millions of views online in the past two years, (“In the Motherhood”) was transformed into a traditional network sitcom, making it the first Web show to be remade for network television. But what made the Web series unique — an interactive style of storytelling — was quashed by the legal engine of Hollywood. 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."
Brian Stelter @ Moms Find Move of ‘In the Motherhood’ From Web to TV on ABC a Hard Shift - NYTimes.com
this is just silly. couldn’t they just figure out the legalities? oh… or is that what the real innovation would have been?
