Actors Want To Be Paid For Internet Video Clips

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We saw this coming back when the writers went on strike over this very same issue. I guess we can probably expect an actor strike if they don’t get some kind of compensation for video clips on the internet. Is it just me or is this whole thing just getting out hand (RIAA. MPAA, Writers, Actors)?

Whether actors must give consent for snippets of their film and TV work to be displayed online, and how much they should earn for them, was the No. 1 disputed issue cited by the Screen Actors Guild after labor talks broke down last Tuesday.
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oh god.... acting and labor talks. Those 2 do not belong in the same subject.
 
I am going to just throw this out there and see what you guys think. An artist makes a sculpture. He is paid when it is done and it goes on display. He is not paid every time someone sees the statue.

Actors and writers want to be compensated Every. Single. Time. someone views their “art.”

What about the craftsmen that built all the sets? Shouldn’t he get paid EVERY TIME too?

This whole thing with the actors / writers / MPAA/ RIAA stinks to high heaven.
 
Yeah this is going to happen... NOT.
 
How else are these poor actors going to afford fuel in their private jets? Have you even SEEN the price of gas lately - let alone ROCKET FUEL.
 
Steve said:
I am going to just throw this out there and see what you guys think. An artist makes a sculpture. He is paid when it is done and it goes on display. He is not paid every time someone sees the statue.

Actors and writers want to be compensated Every. Single. Time. someone views their “art.”

What about the craftsmen that built all the sets? Shouldn’t he get paid EVERY TIME too?

This whole thing with the actors / writers / MPAA/ RIAA stinks to high heaven.
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I agree. Thats pretty much the deal with every other industry. This is actually a hotbutton topic in my family since we have a big author in the family.
 
Its a tough thing. There is already a long precedent for residuals for the directors (including assistant directors and unit production managers), writers, and actors guilds. I can understand why their guilds would want to try to keep those rights for online, especially now that a lot of shows are shown for free and are supported by targeted advertising. If a TV show is a hit and it nets billions of dollars of syndication revenue for the parent company of whoever made it, the creators and performers should get a cut of that. It would IMO be unfair is people like Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld didn't get a piece of that syndication revenue, which is where the real money is made. That same logic follows down the line.

The problem with online is that they have yet to figure out the way that revenue sharing will work there, whereas that sort of thing has been worked out for ages now in television, movies, and commercials. The thing is that services like Hulu are already out there and are very successful, and they have the benefit of being able to track their audience demographics and have ads that are very specifically targeted towards that particular audience. If part of my income was residuals that I had from other media outlets, I sure as hell would want a cut of what comes from online as well if the revenue sharing was ever figured out (and considering how specifically they can target advertising there, I don't see why it can't be).

As an aside, I'm in the cinematographer's guild IATSE Local 600 and I haven't seen a single cent of residuals in my life. Then again, while I still have to be approved to be hired, I also don't have to go through numerous non-paid auditions on my own spare time to just land a single job. I didn't think that the writers guild went about their strike in the right way at all and in the end they hurt their members (not to mention the whole town) in a big way, but I place the blame there on the guild leadership, not the things that they were negotiating over.
 
I agree. Thats pretty much the deal with every other industry. This is actually a hotbutton topic in my family since we have a big author in the family.
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So just so I am understanding this, is your relative saying that they should get paid every time I read their book? That I already paid for online or in a store?
 
Serpico said:
If a TV show is a hit and it nets billions of dollars of syndication revenue for the parent company of whoever made it, the creators and performers should get a cut of that.
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And what if it isn't a hit, and it loses the studio money? Everybody deserves free money when something is a hit because it surely was a hit only because of what they did. When it loses money though do you see everybody offering to give money back to the studio because they made them lose money by producing a loser? Nope - they wash their hands of it and act like it wasn't their fault nobody watched it.

Anybody see what the actors want too?

"Under SAG contract rules originating 50 years ago, each performer in a clip must receive at least the "day-player" minimum of $759, even if the clip is just a few seconds long."

Actor appears in a clip montage, even for 2 seconds, he wants $759. Every time, every instance of the same clip, $759, no mention of a time limit on how old the clip is.
 
Ualdayan said:
Actor appears in a clip montage, even for 2 seconds, he wants $759. Every time, every instance of the same clip, $759, no mention of a time limit on how old the clip is.
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Rick Astley isn't an actor right? lol
 
Steve said:
I am going to just throw this out there and see what you guys think. An artist makes a sculpture. He is paid when it is done and it goes on display. He is not paid every time someone sees the statue.

Actors and writers want to be compensated Every. Single. Time. someone views their “art.”

What about the craftsmen that built all the sets? Shouldn’t he get paid EVERY TIME too?

This whole thing with the actors / writers / MPAA/ RIAA stinks to high heaven.
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Then sculptors and craftsmen should form a union and start getting paid what they deserve. When an actor has video of him put online/on TV/whatever, someone somewhere is making money from that. The TV and movie studios set a precedent awhile back for giving some of the profit to the actors and writers as far as VHS and DVD go. The actors and writers want them to be consistent and give them a share of the online profits as well. It's either that or writers/actors need to be paid a lot more upfront, and there's no way the studios are going to do that.
 
MattWeb said:
Rick Astley isn't an actor right? lol
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I lol'ed.


ElGuapo242 said:
So just so I am understanding this, is your relative saying that they should get paid every time I read their book? That I already paid for online or in a store?
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I think he meant every time you pay for it (i.e. once per book), as opposed to getting paid when you submit the manuscript and no royalties.
 
If there is a more whiney group of folks out there than the SAG, I'd like to hear about it. Add in the fact that unions in general screw their members in the face of 'wii fight for the people'-type talk, and we have yet more visible proof that this idealism is best left in the 20th century. Its quite ironic that the most vocal of the equalization of compensation groups don't realize that they're funding a group that supports the opposite, and that's across the board for unions.
 
These guys at the Film Actors Guild always want more, more, more!

1118574600alec_baldwin.jpg
 
Ualdayan said:
And what if it isn't a hit, and it loses the studio money? Everybody deserves free money when something is a hit because it surely was a hit only because of what they did. When it loses money though do you see everybody offering to give money back to the studio because they made them lose money by producing a loser?
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If a show isn't a hit them actors don't get residual payments because it won't be rebroadcast, common sense.
 
Steve said:
I am going to just throw this out there and see what you guys think. An artist makes a sculpture. He is paid when it is done and it goes on display. He is not paid every time someone sees the statue.

Actors and writers want to be compensated Every. Single. Time. someone views their “art.”

What about the craftsmen that built all the sets? Shouldn’t he get paid EVERY TIME too?

This whole thing with the actors / writers / MPAA/ RIAA stinks to high heaven.
Click to expand...


QFT
 
Steve said:
I am going to just throw this out there and see what you guys think. An artist makes a sculpture. He is paid when it is done and it goes on display. He is not paid every time someone sees the statue.

Actors and writers want to be compensated Every. Single. Time. someone views their “art.”

What about the craftsmen that built all the sets? Shouldn’t he get paid EVERY TIME too?

This whole thing with the actors / writers / MPAA/ RIAA stinks to high heaven.
Click to expand...

I'm glad you guys know so much about the business side about acting, writing and film/television production. Unless you're going to start working in film/television just stick to tech.
 
Steve said:
This whole thing with the actors / writers / MPAA/ RIAA stinks to high heaven.
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There is a big difference here. The RIAA and organizations like that are bureaucracies that stand in between the consumer and the producer of the product.

When we are talking about director/writer/actor residuals, this is money that studios are already making and in some cases it is a lot of money. The studios in this case are the bureaucracies that are standing in the way of capital redistribution to the people who helped create the product.

Also realize that residuals are a way to offset the lost income in unpaid time spent in things like concept pitches and auditions for parts. Nobody is paid for that, and getting a part is more or less a crapshoot based on the requirements for a specific part. For most working actors that make a decent living at what they do well (people who pull in seven figure sums per year are in the .000001 percentile), residuals are what keeps them going. It balances out for both the employer and the actor.

Like I said before, building an accurate model of how to distribute this money from internet programming is something that still hasn't been broken down to a science like film, broadcast TV, or commercials, but that said there is actually money being made there and the potential for even more. I watch Hulu and I can already see that advertising is highly targeted based on what the program being shown is, plus there is only one unskippable spot per break, which to me says that the person is way more likely to sit through it for 15-30 seconds versus normal TV where you will either get up for two or three minutes, or just Tivo your way past the break. They can also track viewing habits based on your account name and location (via IP) with much wider reach and accuracy among internet viewers than Nielson ratings can among TV viewers. Marketing data like this is incredibly valuable.

My main issue with the writer strike is their leadership; they did an awful job negotiating and did serious damage to their cause (not to mention months of lost production for many here in LA). That said, while I had serious problems with their process, I can't say that I have issue with the actual things that they are negotiating for. Hopefully they can reach an agreement that is equitable for both sides.
 
webdev511 said:
I'm glad you guys know so much about the business side about acting, writing and film/television production. Unless you're going to start working in film/television just stick to tech.
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It is a very difficult business, and one that people either know nothing about or assume it is frivolous because the product itself is frivolous.
 
MacDad said:
It's either that or writers/actors need to be paid a lot more upfront, and there's no way the studios are going to do that.
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This is called a SAG buyout and I've seen it happen on commercials. Instead of an initial paycheck followed by residuals, they replace it with a larger lump sum up front.
 
South Park Season 12 Episode 4 said it all.

"How about the internet? Internet makes lots of money, so give us some of that money!"

"Yeah!, give us internet money!"

"you seem to not understand how global economics work, I think..."

"Don't give me that fat cat fancy lip wiggling, are you going to give us more money or not?"
 
meh.. like acting is a real job... remember they can always get a extra cash with a part-time job dredging sewerage... it seems to help tom cruise being full of s***.
 
Deimos said:
South Park Season 12 Episode 4 said it all.

"How about the internet? Internet makes lots of money, so give us some of that money!"

"Yeah!, give us internet money!"

"you seem to not understand how global economics work, I think..."

"Don't give me that fat cat fancy lip wiggling, are you going to give us more money or not?"
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South Park is my favorite show on TV aside from Curb Your Enthusiasm, and even I was WTF at this episode as I was watching it on SouthParkStudios.com, the same place I was being served banner ads on the page and full size video commercial breaks during the episode, all this not long after Matt and Trey made a highly publicized landmark $100+ million dollar renewal deal based on TV, DVD sales, and "internet money" via ad revenue from the website.

They deserve every penny of it and I hated the writers strike, but I call bigtime shenanigans on that episode considering the fact that they themselves have monetized internet viewership.
 
I personally couldn't care less if they went on strike, I'm pretty sure they have enough money as it is.

I don't even like TV.
 
Fuck those money-grubbing bastards. Movies coming out these days suck ass anyway, for the most part.

Maybe if the MPAA paid the money they win from lawsuits back to the studios, then the actors could get their taste. I say let the greedy fucks strike.


:D
 
Serpico said:
South Park is my favorite show on TV aside from Curb Your Enthusiasm, and even I was WTF at this episode as I was watching it on SouthParkStudios.com, the same place I was being served banner ads on the page and full size video commercial breaks during the episode, all this not long after Matt and Trey made a highly publicized landmark $100+ million dollar renewal deal based on TV, DVD sales, and "internet money" via ad revenue from the website.

They deserve every penny of it and I hated the writers strike, but I call bigtime shenanigans on that episode considering the fact that they themselves have monetized internet viewership.
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The moral of the story is that unless you have complete ownership over your property and are in a position to monetize, you shouldn't give up your current stake just to have a chance at a future theoretical stake in internet monetization. In fact, I believe Kyle even says as much.

And some people say South Park is stupid. ;) Smartest cartoon (and I would say, show) on TV today.
 
webdev511 said:
I'm glad you guys know so much about the business side about acting, writing and film/television production. Unless you're going to start working in film/television just stick to tech.
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Please feel free to explain it to me so that I (and everyone else) can understand how each performer in a clip must receive at least the "day-player" minimum of $759, even if the clip is just a few seconds long.
 
Here we go again. Another blown TV season.

They need to realize at some point, we'll cease to care any more. I'm pretty damned close.
 
TechLarry said:
Here we go again. Another blown TV season.

They need to realize at some point, we'll cease to care any more. I'm pretty damned close.
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I told somebody the other day - "Guess what the actors union wants now" and their response was "Don't really care - they've made me not really give a crap anymore about TV." Followed by their attention returning fully to a videogame.

Thing is you know once people don't care and viewership declines the advertising dollars will decline and all these writers/actors will find themselves making a whole lot less than they were before they started all this - and the whole way down we'll hear about how hard it is on them and how it's everybody else's fault, afterall they only wanted their "fair" share.
 
I watch South Park and the Yankees as most of the crap on t.v. doesn't interest me.

Honestly, for actor's who make millions of dollars a year (from movies alone), they can keep their bitching to a minimum when they have 4 houses, 20 cars, and a fucking jet when they star in a 2 second clip that is streamed on the Internet.
 
mastercheeze said:
The moral of the story is that unless you have complete ownership over your property and are in a position to monetize, you shouldn't give up your current stake just to have a chance at a future theoretical stake in internet monetization. In fact, I believe Kyle even says as much.

And some people say South Park is stupid. ;) Smartest cartoon (and I would say, show) on TV today.
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I agree with what you said re: it being the smartest show on TV. That said, let us say that Matt and Trey were only the actors or the writers, not both. In that case, some of the residual revenue would be diverted to those other people instead, that's the whole point.

Not everyone has the leverage that people like Matt or Trey do, that's the whole point behind collective bargaining. And again, I think the writers guild absolutely went the wrong way about their negotiations, but that was the fault of the leadership (something the SP took direct aim at), not the actual things they were negotiating for.

There is this of talk of "theoretical revenue" from the internet. From what I can see it isn't theoretical at all. Google has built up a multibillion dollar market cap business on serving ads. Places like Hulu (this goes way beyond Southparkstudios.com) makes money by serving unskippable video ads during the programming, ad popups during the shows, those little ad "bugs" in the corner, as well as banner ads on the page. These ads are targeted, easily tracked to accounts and viewer location, and are probably even more effective than television ads because of that. There is also less inventive to walk away during a 2 minute break (we're only talking 15-30 seconds here) plus you can't Tivo past them. Services like iTunes make money from the direct ales of content, just like DVD sales.

So yeah, if in the past I was guaranteed residual sales from other sources and I saw the studios trying to sidestep paying residuals with the internet, I'd be trying to get that as well, especially since those online sales will likely supersede normal television viewing at some point.

The dishonest thing that South Park episode did was to use stupid internet video meme stars like Tay Zonday and Numu Numa guy to make their point. Of course they're not supposed to make residuals. There is a massive difference between random people in stupid fad videos making residuals versus the writers, directors, and actors of real shows like Battlestar Galactica or 30 Rock who create actual real revenue for their parent companies trying to get the same.
 
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