Mr. Gerry O'Brien:

I will deal with the first issue and Ms Quinn can step in at any time she wishes. The Deputy referred to signing on and signing off. The UK film industry has what is called a guaranteed period of work, which is an actor's first core period of work. If actors have a six-week job on a film, they may be booked from 1 January right through to the middle of February, where the first week is a full week and they get paid for that, and in the second week they might do three days and they get paid for that. In the third week, they might just do one day. It has been worked out that someone might not survive with what he or she is going to get for one day, so there is a negotiated supplemental payment that applies to the week where the person works only one day, because he or she is losing out on potential signing-on days. There may also be a week where the person does not work, and there is a supplemental payment for that.

What the film company is doing is engaging and employing someone for the full length, from week one of the actor’s first call until the last week of the first call. It is divided into seven-day periods and, for example, the first seven-day period could start on Wednesday and finish on a Wednesday, and they work it that way. With good scheduling, it works for the producer and if the scheduling is loose but they still need you for the film, it works for you. What that does is it prevents the producer’s scheduling needs being subsidised again by social welfare, and it also means the actor will be engaged and employed for a longer period. The supplemental payments are not much more than, say, whatever the actor’s negotiated minimum performance rate would be. That is sometimes capped, so it is not a huge amount but is enough to be a bit more than the social welfare. That means the actor will have six weeks of contributions rather than broken contributions of maybe one day a week, or whatever. That benefits the State because the State is not subsidising the scheduling needs of the production or the television series and it is taking people away from that, so that is a good thing. It benefits the performer later on because he or she will have those credits.

As to who owns the rights, that is the $64 million question. When I sign my rights into the DAC, there is no written information for me as to where they go, and they could go anywhere because rights can be assigned anywhere. It is just a line on a page that all rights are assigned to this company, and the company can assign it on and on. It is generally an end-user who will get it. In the case of the big streaming companies, they want all of the rights, even from the producers, so that is a difficult area. We are both suffering there. It is just that we are suffering a bit more when the producers are doing it to us.

As to what happens to the rights, they have a value, as I said, and whoever owns them, that is where the revenue stream will go. It says in the copyright Act that the benefit of those rights goes to whoever they are assigned to, so how they are assigned is important. Therefore, at the contract level, it has to be stated, “If this much is made, a percentage is coming back here, and there will be so many transmissions on television” and so on. All of those are worked into the document that should be the basis of the film agreement or television agreement and the industry agreement. As to what happens to the rights, as I said, I do not know.