Yes you do. British Equity Collecting Society (BECS) is a separate organisation and is the UK’s only collective management organisation for audiovisual performers. It represents the interests of its members in the negotiation and administration of performers’ remuneration throughout the European Union territories. BECS also administers artist payments on behalf of Equity and broadcasting companies. Artists have to sign up to BECS individually but this costs nothing and you can withdraw at any time – for more information please visit www.equitycollecting.org.uk

Equity is a Union first and foremost and therefore our main function is to negotiate minimum terms and conditions of employment. We cannot act as agents for our members.

However in addition to our core activities, Equity strives to provide a wide range of services for members which are continually being revised and developed. We appreciate how important finding work is for members and therefore launched the Job Information Service. This service publishes accurate, up to the minute breakdowns and vacancy information from across the industry. The service reflects both the diversity of the Equity membership and the range of jobs our members are employed in, including acting, dancing, singing, variety, circus, theatre directors and stage management. Equity members can use the service to find out about paid work and job providers can use this site to give us information about work opportunities free of charge.

If you have any queries regarding the service, please contact Tracey Stuart, Job Information Officer at Equity on 020 7670 0242 or e-mail jobinformation@equity.org.uk.

Equity has also launched online members’ directories which give members an opportunity to market themselves. For further information please refer to the main Equity website – www.equity.org.uk

By doing this you could be exposing yourself to potential claims of infringement of copyright under the terms of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. In order to cover yourself you would need to get permission from all those who may contain copyright in the recorded works, which may include authors of the music, scriptwriters, set designers and other rights holders. All the performers in the clip have performers’ rights, which means they have rights with respect to the use of a recording of the performance. A performer has the right to control the broadcasting of his or her live performance to the public and you would therefore need to get permission from all performers. It is unlikely that rights holders would expect payment for the use of the clip on a show reel, but it is in your interests to clear the rights of all the performers involved.

It depends. The EPS is very competitively priced and you may find it offers better value for money that your existing arrangements. First Act, our appointed Insurance Advisers and administrators of the EPS are best placed to help you answer this question. Contact Andrew Barker of First Act on 020 8686 5050 or via email:eps@firstact.co.uk.

They will provide you with full assistance on a no fee and no obligation basis. Other useful information can be found on their website at www.firstact.co.uk .

Equity was a founder member of the Federation of Entertainment Unions along with the Musicians Union, BECTU, Writers Guild of Great Britain, National Union of Journalists and the Professional Footballers Association. Representatives from the constituent members of FEU attend meetings with Broadcasters, OFCOM and government agencies on a regular basis to ensure that the issues of concern to its members are always on the agenda.

Equity was also a founding partner of the International Federation of Actors in 1952. FIA (www.fia-actors.com) is an international non-governmental organisation representing performer’s trade unions, guilds and associations around the world. It voices the professional concerns and interests of actors in film, TV, radio, theatre and live performance, broadcast professionals, dancers, singers, variety and circus artists amongst others. Equity is an active member of FIA and has recently instigated a number of meetings with our US and Canadian sister Unions SAG, AFTRA and ACTRA to address the impact of the emerging technologies on performers. In many cases, Equity is leading the way in those discussions.

Equity has developed very close working relationships with agents and this has been strengthened by regular liaison meetings with the Personal Managers Association (PMA). During the course of our discussions with the employers as part of the negotiations for a single pan-industry agreement, the PMA has been represented by observers.

In addition representatives from the PMA are members of Equity’s Television, Film and New Media Working Parties. The PMA also has observers on the board of British Equity Collecting Society (BECS).

To ensure that performers receive repeat fees, royalties and/or residuals it is crucial to ensure that you are engaged on standard Equity contracts. Non-union contracts tend to be issued with buy outs that meant that no payments are due beyond the initial fee structure.

Equity’s Film, Television and Radio department has always relied on members and their agents to alert us to any use of a member’s performance where the right to re-use the work was not paid for in the initial contract. Once you are on an Equity contract you have the right to receive payments for additional uses of your work. Historically the main UK broadcasters, who made most of the programming, made the payment fairly swiftly but the proliferation of channels and new means of delivery coupled with the rapid growth in the role of independent producers, securing payment has become significantly more difficult and time consuming.

Equity is investing a lot of resources to allow us to be more pro-active. Technology has made it a little easier to track and monitor productions across the world and, with the advent of an international numbering scheme, which we hope will be adopted by all broadcasters and other rights holders, similar to that deployed on books, we will slowly improve our ability to monitor and enforce our contracts.

We have also put in place a full time Contract Enforcement Officer whose principle role will be to track down and enforce the terms of members contracts wherever their performance is being used and on whatever platform the performance is being delivered. Further details of our work on contract enforcement are contained on FACTSHEET number 6: Contract Enforcement.

If we take the second part of the question first we believe the answer is: “absolutely not”.

However small the new services are and however small the income generated now, these new platforms will increase and therefore income will increase. Our experience is that once you agree to either incorporate such uses in the fee or agree a limited buy out it will become incredibly difficult to negotiate a return to appropriate equitable remuneration.

The process which led Equity to seek to negotiate one TV Agreement was primarily a result of the impact of new technologies such as those listed in the question. Whilst negotiations have continued business within the television industry with Equity busily negotiating agreements to cover these new services/platforms. We now have a number of agreements, please refer to the FACTSHEET number 3: ‘Paying for the Future: Collective Licences’ , with all the major UK broadcasters which allows them to run their video on demand services such as the BBC iPlayer, 4oD (Channel 4 video on demand) and ITV.com (ITV’s video on demand service).

On these largely free services Equity has been negotiating sums of monies to be distributed by BECS which is based on period of time and the number of hits or visitors registered to a particular programme. In terms of downloads such as Download to Own or Download to Rent, please refer to the Briefing Document: ‘Terms and Definitions: What it all Means’ , Equity is negotiating with the broadcasters a revenue sharing agreement based on the appropriate point of the download price which is free from deductions please refer to the FACTSHEET number 3: ‘Digital Deductions: Do they Add up’ . We are also playing our part in the debates on digital rights managements which ensure that multiple copies of titles are not made by the consumer.

We should point out that our sister unions in Canada and the USA have recently had to strike to secure payments and rights for the use of performances on these new platforms. Thankfully Equity has beeen able to negotiate additional payments without the necessity to instruct members to take industrial action.

We recognise that the issue of royalties versus residual/repeat fee payments remains a major cause of concern amongst the membership.

It is true to say that without the principle of a royalty being part of the negotiators tools many of our agreements would simply not work and therefore would become irrelevant. Our research has confirmed that where there is a true arms length sale (via whatever platform) the application of the royalty is the best option to ensure members are rewarded properly. For example with video/DVD, download to own, download to rent and overseas sales.

In relation to sales of programmes within the so called family of channels eg BBC 1/2/3/4, ITV1/2/3/4 and C4/E4/More4 Equity is challenging the broadcasters on the transparency of dealings and whether a price paid where the buyer and seller is the same is the most equitable manner in dealing with sales. Equity is gathering sales information both on the basis of arms-length and non-arms-length sales to ensure that the internal market generated by the broadcasters reflects a true market sale.

Should evidence point to serious discrepancies then Equity has the automatic right to challenge and audit those sales and as part of the pan industry negotiations look at alternative methods of payment for use within the family of channels

The comparisons between Equity and our sister Union SAG are very difficult to make. SAG has a current membership in excess of 120,000 with subscription rates somewhat higher than ours; the focus of their activities is on the recorded arts whereas Equity encompasses all elements of performance live and recorded. It is also true to say that SAG operates under a very different legislative environment and can enforce a closed shop with employers – the closed shop has been outlawed in the UK since the 1980s and appears unlikely to return as none of the major political parties support it.

Equity has worked extremely hard since the abolition of the closed shop and our successes are measured by our sister unions in the US looking to us for a lead in the way we are negotiating new media rights without recourse to industrial action.

Obviously there is much more Equity wants to do, and members can rest assured that the union is workng to secure the best possible agreements for members and ensuring that we maintain and increase our role within the wider industry.