MEAA halts world-first film project in Australia

Wow, this MEAA sounds like a bunch of lamers.

OMG...how lame is this. Apparently SHARING is not something the Screen Actors Guild nows how to do. Should we blame their mothers?

The MEAA has always been quite inflexible when it comes to allowing it's members to work on projects that want to use different ways of getting actor participation. In the past actors have been prevented from working on projects for little-or-no pay (e.g. short low-or-no-budget films) because the MEAA has been worried that unscrupulous producers will plead poverty to avoid paying actors the proper industry rates. This move to prevent particpation in Creative Commons projects would appear to be from the same mindset - an attempt to prevent actors from being exploited. Imagine the scenario - an actor gets paid to work on a short film. The film is licensed under the Creative Commons and is subsequently remixed. The remix (somehow) makes money, but the actor doesn't get paid for appearing in what is bascially a 'new' work.

What the MEAA doesn't get is - by creating a high barrier to entry for film-making (i.e. not allowing professional actors to set their own rates for projects that can't afford the standard industry rates), in effect they are keeping actors out of work. Everyone knows that the more you get your face in front of people the more likely they are to recognise your talent and then offer you more work.

In the same way, by preventing actors from appearing works that are licensed under a Creative Commons arrangement, all the MEAA is doing is reducing the opportunities for actors to work.

Hi, here are my comments to the MEAA

As a union member and former employee of a number of unions and ALP government ministers I must say I am very disappointed with the short sighted decision to ban MEAA members from participating in Creative Commons projects. (See http://rights.apc.org.au/culture/2005/03/meaa_halts_worldfirst_film_project_in_australia.php for details)

You are ignoring valuable "organising" opportunities by making it distasteful for a wide range of young and emerging artists to become members of the MEAA.

At festivals, in bedrooms, garages and backlots around the country thousands of young people are participating in activities that should identify them as a prime target for organising opportunities that would increase membership of the MEAA and build workplace activism amongst a group that is very hard to reach due to the high prevalence of "daytime jobs" and artistic endeavors as something done "on the side"

These are people who are prepared to “go the extra mile” when it comes to orgaising creative opportunities and it would seem that you are not prepared to meet them

By failing to commit to the hard work of organizing amongst these “fringe” groups and projects you are effectively closing the door to new members at the beginning of their creative careers.

Collection societies such as APRA have agreed to work with Creative Commons Australia, Universities such as Queensland University of Technology are sponsoring several major research projects into the use of the Creative Commons in the Creative Industries. I worry that your decision will be perceived badly not just by your current membership, but even worse, your potential future membership.

Creative Commons is not all about giving things away and artists working for free, several companies have built sustainable business models around the creative commons – eg. Magnatunes – See http://creativecommons.org/audio/magnatune for more details.

I hope you reconsider your decision and can come to a working arrangement with organizations that are trying to break new ground.

Yours in solidarity,

Mark Fallu

Mark, this is just the kind of support this issue needs. The producer will be interviewed on 2SER this evening and is asking that people contact both the MEAA and the AFC, particularly the AFC, to encourage them to support the project as they had said they would.

A lively discussion has sparked up in Slashdot, courtesy of Boing Boing who managed to pick up the story from our thread:

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/15/2145245&tid=155&tid=153

I am afraid I do not understand. Assuming for a second that slavery has been abolished in Australia, how can a union forbid its members to work somewhere?

Here is the submission I just sent to the MEAA Federal Office via the form on:
http://www.alliance.org.au/contact/emailform.cgi

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I am very disappointed with the short sighted decision to ban MEAA members from participating in Creative Commons projects. (See http://rights.apc.org.au/culture/2005/03/meaa_halts_worldfirst_film_project_in_australia.php for details)

What is your reasoning behind this decision?

I believe that you are ignoring the huge value-generating potential of community-based peer-production. I acknowledge actors participating in "some rights reserved" projects may not be immediately rewarded with large compensation. But if the works become highly popular due to the possibilities allowed for under less restrictive licensing, then the demand for those actors services will also increase. Actors should be free to choose to participate in projects regardless of licensing terms. Let time and experience decide which licensing models are more beneficial to actors.

Firm-based production of mass entertainment evolved during a period when the costs of production and distribution were the central organizing principle of information and cultural production. These costs largely structured production around a capital-intensive, industrial model.

The declining price of computation, however, has inverted the capital structure of information and cultural production. Inexpensive desktop PCs, as well as digital video and audio systems, are now capable of performing most of the physical capital functions that once required substantial investments.

Where physical capital costs for fixation and communication are low and widely distributed, and where existing information is itself a public good, the primary remaining scarce resource is human creativity. And it is under these conditions that the relative advantages of peer production emerge to much greater glory than possible before. Allow your members to participate in this future, or risk becoming an obsolete artifact of an earlier age.

I sent the same response (as above) to the AFC email listed on:
http://www.afc.gov.au/contact.aspx

Top stuff, Mark Fallu. Round of applause, that man!

The following sent to the AFC:

I am writing to encourage your support for MODFilms in their efforts to create new means for the production and distribution of cultural products, in this case being their interactive re-mixable film, Sanctuary.

I would also encourage efforts to understand the efforts of Creative Commons to provide a licensing scheme under various countries jurisdictions, that provides a licensing framework for those exploring alternative and new means of the production and distribution of creative works such as music, literature and film.

It is the Australian Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance's (MEAA) refusal to provide any dispensation to MODFilms that hinders and stifles cultural development, particularly at a time when we are surrounded by homogeneity. Will the AFC be party to this practice, or seek to support the efforts of those working beyond the conventions that were meant to protect not hinder us in our efforts to develop and sustain new ideas?

It has been my understanding, from our work with the AFC in the past, that the AFC does encourage innovation and thereby contributes to the cultural life and development of its beneficiaries. I hope this is still case.

For more information about this issue the the concerns of others please refer to:

http://modfilms.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=123
http://rights.apc.org.au/culture/2005/03/meaa_halts_worldfirst_film_project_in_australia.php

Kind regards,

Andrew Garton
Producer/Artistic Director - c2o/Toy Satellite
Editor - APC.au ICT Rights Monitor

Here is the response I got back from the MEAA
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Dear Mark

Thanks for your email about the Creative Commons project. While this project has, according to the organisers, been years in the planning, the union was only contacted with very short notice. Our members, who are on the National Performers Committee, considered the request and decided that it hadn't been well thought through from the performers' perspective.

The Alliance spends a lot of time helping to develop our industry and we've fought very hard for improvements for performers, including recognition and respect for their moral rights. We also must continually work hard to ensure that there is a professional acting community in australia and that people can earn a living at it.

While we appreciate that a lot happens that is of a collaborative nature (coop theatre, low/no budget films, etc), it's also important that we protect the wages rates that we have fought for over the years and the recognition that performers actually have a stake in their performance.

So while I appreciate your concern, I hope you can see that, from our point of view, a million and one good ideas are always coming along and, where we can, we work with people to realise their vision while protecting the slim rights of performers.

Mark, the ask is always on performers in our industry and the Alliance's job is to recognise this and back up our members to ensure that we're not always on the back foot or on the slippery slope of undermining the professional in favour of the amateur.

With best wishes

Louise Connor
Victoria Branch Secretary
Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance
Tel: 03 9691 7100
Fax: 03 9691 7155
Email: louise.connor@alliance.org.au

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And here is my response

Hi Louise,

Thankyou very much for your thoughtful and detailed email.

I understand your position, especially in regards to dealing with arts organizations that do their planning after the fact. I understand how being cautious can make you look unreasonable in the situation you describe.

Let me try and reassure you as to the detail of some of your concerns.

As I understand it, this project had agreed to pay the workers 110% of the award wage.

Actors and models commonly work on projects that are destined to be royalty free, such as stock photography, and stock film products. Once these products are sold the recipients are free to adapt them or revoice them as required and as determined by the freedoms expressed in the purchase contract. I don't think this project is fundamentally different in scope to any number of "stock footage" projects.

Perhaps the problem here is that it appears that you have given a blanket refusal for your members to work on this sort of project. As I explained in my last email - I believe this could be a fertile ground for future Organising Opportunities. In the meantime, however, I think the unions position would be better served by an approach that appeared more conciliatory and responsive.

Perhaps you could produce a list of your problems with the proposed license and detail the potential negative impacts for individual members and the profession as a whole if the project was to proceed. Your approval could then be dependent upon either the project team satisfactorily addressing those concerns or every participant in the project signing a statement that they have read and understand the concerns and that they will free you from any responsibility in the matter.

The current approach would appear to be untenable. If there is a genuine problem here - you are merely exporting it (and any potential benefits overseas.) It would be far better to deal with it here in an environment where it can be supervised and moderated than letting the movement grow overseas to return in a form where you can have little impact on its shape.

Thankyou for the opportunity to discuss this matter further. I hope that it can be resolved in a fashion that is mutually beneficial to both parties.

Please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss how projects like this could be used as an "Organising Opportunity".

Cheers,

Mark Fallu

The Dean of the Faculty of Law from QUT, Brian Fitzgerald, will work with the Alliance to modify the creative commons licence, which fails to acknowledge performers' moral rights. He recognises performer concerns relating to 'Sanctuary', a re-mixable film intended for the Internet. The licence allows for the modification, adaptation and reuse of a film without performer consultation or payment.

MEAA lashes out at the AFC in this media release. If the Musician's Union took the same stand there'd be little innovation in contemporary music and the electronic music industry may just slide...

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Subject: AFC provides no Sanctuary for Australian performers - Media Release

30 March 2005

Media Release

AFC provides no Sanctuary for Australian performers

"A performer with the head of a goat, spruiking for the Trotskyist party on a pro-abortion platform, it's all just part of the future of film encouraged by the Australian Film Commission (AFC)", says Simon Whipp, National Director, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance.

"With Australian box office at historic lows of 1.3% of total film box office, it seems that the AFC has some pretty strange ideas on how to build box office," he said.

The Australian Film Commission has indicated it intends to fund Sanctuary a 'so-called' re-mixable film intended for theatrical release, DVD and the Internet. It is being produced under a creative commons licence, which means that the film can be modified, adapted and reused by third parties without performer or producer consent or payment.

"This means that a film that starts out with a performer in a specific role could end up spliced and diced into a pornographic scenario a million miles away from what the performer agreed to or would feel comfortable with", Whipp said.

"You've got to wonder if this is how Government money should be used in promoting the local film industry," he said.

"By funding this film the AFC will be party to the exploitation of performers. In other jurisdictions performers as well as writers and directors are protected from this exploitation by moral rights laws."

In Australia all performers have to rely upon is the agreement negotiated by their union, and the producer of this film has said it will not use the union’s standard Feature Film Agreement, which would prevent this exploitation.

"The US Screen Actors Guild (SAG) have endorsed our stance on Sanctuary and stated that their members will not sign to any productions, either on film, tape or digital, made under a creative commons licence," Whipp said.

"The AFC have got is wrong on this production and it is Australian performers who will suffer the consequences of their decision," Whipp predicted.

"The local film industry is precious to all Australians, and the federal Government should have a long hard think about whether it wants to fund our home grown performers digitally manipulated to sound like aliens with heads of farmyard geese, talking about sex with donkeys as they perform terrorist acts on the Sydney CBD."

Media enquiries: Simon Whipp 0413 153 059