This is the fifth in the Screen Actors Guild's 2008 contract reports. Report #1 discusses middle-income actors, #2 talks about New Media (at end of post), #3 explores residuals, #4 explains general topics. Now #5 focuses on actors clips:
SAG CONTRACT 2008 REPORT
Number 5 -- The AMPTP Wants to Use Excerpts From TV Shows and Motion Pictures Without Actor’s Consent on the Internet….And BeyondMay 6, 2008
HERE’S WHAT THE EMPLOYERS ARE ASKING FOR RELATED TO CLIP USE ON NEW MEDIA FORMATS:
· The right to sell clips from television and their entire library of motion pictures for use on the Internet and other new media formats WITHOUT your consent and without bargaining with you during the term of the agreement. That includes stars, dayplayers, guest stars, etc.· While AMPTP companies have limited rights now to use clips for defined promotional purposes (new productions or releases), they are now seeking to reach back into their vaults and release non-promotional clips and sell them for use in various new media platforms. As proposed, they want to use clips from all motion pictures and television shows produced to date-- through the future without your consent.
· Except for agreeing that clips including nudity would not be sold, we have no guarantees about the actual exploitation of these clips. They could be edited, mashed and morphed into anything, anywhere.
· While the companies have proposed nominal non-negotiable payments for the use, your right to consent and negotiate would be gone if we accept this proposal.
SAG FOUGHT HARD TO GET THE RIGHT FOR ACTOR’S CONSENT FOR CLIP USE
· For many decades, SAG contracts have provided protections for clip use, giving you the right to refuse to consent to the use, or to negotiate compensation. In fact, if clips without your consent, treble (triple) damages may be due.· We understand that employers are looking for new business models to keep up with the technological boom. In fact, we offered to allow actors to consent and negotiate for future clip use at the time they are hired starting in July 2008. But the AMPTP did not agree to our counter proposal.
· The WGA and DGA did not have consent provisions in their history, so this was not asked of them for their new deals. AFTRA agreed to remove consent for clip use in the Network Code contract they recently negotiated, but we believe it is a very different story for actors in motion pictures and dramatic television shows covered by SAG contracts.
· Thousands of actors and actors’ estates receive clip payments on a regular basis, but only after consenting to the specific use in advance.
· Your images are not only your past they are your future. There are no protections in the AMPTP proposals regarding how and where your image may be used once it is sold.
· You should have the right to control your own image. Likewise, estates for many of the legends of the past should also retain that historical right of consent and individual negotiation.
This is such a non-starter (and offensive) to actors that it’s almost funny. This demand from the AMPTP, along with trying to do away with lunch breaks for actors, should make it clear and obvious to EVERYONE that the AMPTP WANTS a strike.
Unless the IATSE, DGA, etc., come out and publicly denounce this bad faith bargaining of the AMPTP, we’ll have SAG being forced to strike.
And the only ones to blame will be the AMPTP. But they won’t care a lick. A strike will enable them to force majeur lots of deals.
Comment by Supportive Actor — May 7, 2008 @ 11:35 am
Actors have more power in contract talks than writers and directors do and it burns the AMPTP (not to mention writers and directors) to admit it. Any damn fool can write or direct — many do (if we’re not talking quality) but what’re they gonna point the cameras at, hand puppets? Hang in there, SAGgers.
Comment by Santayana — May 7, 2008 @ 11:59 am
Supportive just doesn’t get it.
That’s a condition that comes from reading too many Membership First e-mails.
Nobody proposed elimination of lunch breaks. If you’re going to make a deal you make a deal.
Our guys thought they were going to prove what big dicks they have, so they puffed out their chests and strutted around the room.
On the other side the reaction was we’ve seen idiots come and we’ve seen idiots go.
See ya!
Comment by T. Obvious — May 7, 2008 @ 12:09 pm
The situation is not good here. The AMPTP’s attitude towards guilds is the same as the United States government’s attitude towards terrorists: We will not negotiate.
They won’t listen to reasonable requests, and striking doesn’t seem to help. They can lose the war of words in the media until the cows come home; no skin off their nose. So what’s the solution? If we look at the AMPTP side of the equation, we see a few behemoth companies calling the shots that screw the creatives, while the lower-level companies throw up their hands and say “hey, what can we do.”
I think the same thing needs to happen on the union side. We need the top earners — people like Brad Pitt and Reese Witherspoon — to stand up with a proposal in hand and say, “Accept these terms or we will never work for you again.” Look, if the AMPTP could get away with saying that scripted programming doesn’t affect their bottom line, George Clooney should be able to say convincingly that acting doesn’t affect his.
Comment by Nick — May 7, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
This is worth striking over? Gimme (and the rest of us BTL) a break- Bullshit!
Comment by Bill — May 7, 2008 @ 2:03 pm
I think it’s a fair thing to give up only if all SAG members are given the freedom to use any clips and photos of Studio & network moguls and employees to use as SAG members see fit.
Comment by reelbusy — May 7, 2008 @ 3:58 pm
Unconditional and unrestricted clip use may include shows structured like the old Brian Benben HBO show, Dream On. It may include commercials. It may also include, in commercial or theatrical form, actors being digitally manipulated to do things they never actually did. A relatively benign example of this is Spielberg swapping guns for walkie-talkies in the hands of the bad guys in a DVD re-release of E.T. The Extraterrestrial. We’ve already seen clips of actors from classic movies used in television commercials, including Fred Astaire, John Wayne and Steve McQueen.
As I understand the AMPTP’s proposal, the moguls could take clips of an actor, do digital motion capture of their performance (including voice), and generate a “performance” of the actor in an entirely new project.
For example, want to see Groucho Marx circa Duck Soup paired up with Sandra Bullock circa Demolition Man? Done. You wouldn’t even need the current Sandra Bullock. Wait. Groucho isn’t tall enough? Not a problem. We can make him taller. We have the technology.
This is just one aspect of the brave new world actors are facing.
Again, I am not privy to the details of the AMPTP’s proposal. IMHO, AFTRA about gave away the store by giving away clips in the Network Code. I would be wary even of SAG’s “consent and negotiate” counterproposal. Firm rules need to be in place to protect actors’ visage, voice, livelihood, and reputation going into the future.
The clip issue is huge. Far larger than many might think at first glance. Vigilance is required.
Comment by mheister — May 7, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
Totally agree with Supportive Actor. I’ll admit SAG has made some crucial mistakes here, but their heart is in the right place. I don’t think the AMPTP has a heart.
Peggy Lane O’Rourke
Comment by Peggy Lane O'Rourke — May 7, 2008 @ 6:40 pm
In this statement, how many times do the SAG leaders use the word ‘could’? The AMPTP ‘could’ cease all production entirely, then still report profits, if they so pleased. That doesn’t mean it’s happening. Does the AMPTP want a strike? Perhaps. But are they forcing one? Only a little bit. Cooler heads can prevail. They can report profits. But lets protect ourselves, please.
Comment by AmICrazy? — May 7, 2008 @ 7:54 pm
Here we go with the double standards again
If I as a fan or viewer upload a clip of something the Big Companies distribute to YouTube or some other online video site, you can bet that the conglomerates will try to sue me and enjoin me and fine me 12 ways to Sunday even if I don’t charge anything to the people who want to see what I’m uploading. And assuming even if have a ‘good reason’ to upload it (like I’m critiquing it or I’m just sharing one of their promotional clips and helping them put backsides in theater seats or in front of the tube with my recommendations) the companies can be arbitrary and capricious in granting me permission to do so.
However if actors ask the conglomerates to grant them the same permissions before they go all posting and promotion happy, look how they squeal like stuck pigs and flip out about being ‘inconvenienced’ (crying how it’s ‘too expensive’ to do the paperwork). And I’ll bet that not only will they mess around with these clips manipulating them ad nauseum, they’ll be hot to charge me and other viewers and fans for them and yet still figure out how to do the bookkeeping so creatively that yet again the actors won’t get paid for these despite their professions of their alleged willingness to pay actors for these clips.
Believe me I am more motivated than ever to disintermediate the companies from the process…it’s time to cut the greedy crazy middlemen out already and let actors act and fans and viewers watch and make sure that payments flow directly from audience to talent. I can’t wait for something like a Live Nation for visual media to come along and eject them from my life.
Comment by VDOVault — May 7, 2008 @ 8:44 pm
Comment by Peggy Lane O’Rourke - “I don’t think the AMPTP has a heart.”
Perhaps, Peggy, but it’s not AMPTP’s job to have a heart. Their purpose is to make money. We’re the crazy ones who do this insanity “for the love of the game.” Not them.
Comment by Working SAG Character Actor. — May 8, 2008 @ 10:30 am
Comment by Santayana — “Any damn fool can write or direct….”
Some of those “damn fools” might disagree with your assesssment of their contributions.
Comment by Working SAG Character Actor — May 8, 2008 @ 10:34 am
I’m a producer.
You give me clips like this, I’ll give you a show that sells and makes money.
And I’ll be glad to not pay SAG for it.
Remember the movie THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT?
(No? then look it up on IMDB)
It was made up of clips just like this and grossed a lot of money for MGM in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s and it begat two sequels. Millions of dollars were made off just that. How many “Best of” shows could I cut with a rule like this? Lots of them.
This issue is a big loss if SAG lets it happen.
Comment by reelbusy — May 8, 2008 @ 1:11 pm