Jeff Kornberg's dream is to be a television writer, but he's leaving school at the wrong time.

"I'm graduating this semester, and I might go into a field that's on strike," he said. "But I feel like, without the writers, TV wouldn't work."

Kornberg's predicament is the subject of much controversy around Hollywood these days. The Writers Guild of America remains on strike after more than two months of picketing and negotiating, leaving avid TV viewers without their usual shows.

Kornberg (senior-English) is understandably on the side of the writers. He wrote a full-length play for No Refund Theatre (NRT) and has even registered a script with the Writers Guild.

The ramifications of the strike aren't limited to aspiring writers, however. Penn State TV fans wanting to tune in to the Golden Globe Awards this year may have found themselves flipping through channels Sunday, unable to find the glamorous award ceremony.

Like many students, Kornberg has also suffered the loss of a beloved TV show. His series of choice: Lost.

"They could keep making reality shows, but they're probably going to run out of ideas pretty quickly," he said. "Both sides know they can't function nearly as well without each other."

NRT member Jesse Cramer (sophomore-English) is another student upset at Lost being cancelled.

"I'm an unbelievable Lost fan," he said. "The idea of some of these reality shows makes me cringe."

Having written plays in the past, Cramer isn't too concerned about his future. Though Broadway suffered a setback because of a stagehand strike in November, theater shows aren't involved in the current controversy with writers and directors over Internet distribution.

Last Saturday, the Directors Guild of America began contract talks about compensation for shows, discussing movies and other content streamed or downloaded online.

About 10,500 Writers Guild members began the strike in November, derailing this past TV season and causing some awards shows to change their formats in response to the picketers.

Matt Jackson, head of the telecommunications department at Penn State, has done research on the First Amendment and policy issues involving media like the Internet. He also takes the side of the writers on this issue.

"It's a difficult situation in that the entertainment industry is moving to all these new technologies ... so the writers are just asking for their piece of the pie," he said. "But the distributors are arguing that nobody's really sure how large the pie is going to be."

Part of the problem, Jackson said, is that Internet-based companies are selling TV show and movie downloads for such cheap prices.

"Large companies ... are keeping the price of the content very low, which doesn't give the distributors a lot of flexibility in terms of how much of their revenues they're able to share with their writers," he said.

Jackson said the public has become too accustomed to obtaining media like TV shows and movies for free.

"What they need to recognize is even though it's free to distribute the content, it costs a lot of money to create the content in the first place," he said. "I think the distributors to need to give a share of those revenues to the writers, and consumers need to recognize that part of this is the pressure of everybody sharing these files for free."

As for the actors supporting the strike, Jackson thinks the action of celebrities has been subdued.

"They're taking the sides of the writers, but you don't see too many of them jumping up and down making huge public statements," he said. "It's more sort of deciding not to cross the picket lines."

With celebrities supporting the strike, the Golden Globe Awards wasn't the only ceremony affected. This month's People's Choice Awards resorted to pre-taped awards and interviews. With decreased hype, the People's Choice TV audience was cut to 6 million, which is nearly half the number of viewers of last year's ceremony.

With numbers this low, concern is focused now on the Academy Awards ceremony, which is scheduled for Feb. 24.

"Based on what happened with the Golden Globes, I think that works to the writers' advantage," Jackson said. "I think the studios will have much more pressure on them now to try and reach an agreement with the writers before the Academy Awards."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.