said that changes in the way entertainment content is being distributed on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime, Peacock, Apple Plus, Paramount TV and all the others, threatens to undermine the wage structures and residuals formulas that thousands of actors and performers have depended on for decades.
“We experience in this industry what people experience elsewhere, which is that the bargaining leverage that people have for their wages is getting less and less. And this begins to hollow out the middle class. And this is happening with our members as well, and will continue to happen if we are not careful.
“But now, when you watch Netflix, all of the shows sit up on their platform, and that is where they sit. Increasingly, ‘windows’ are going away. That means the original bargain that people had for compensation is potentially going away, and it will make it harder for people to make a living. That becomes our role, and we have put in place structures to ensure that while that product sits up there on a platform, people continue to be paid. But without countervailing structures, people would not.
“If you’re tempted to write this off as a problem with limited reach,” Carteris said, “consider the potential implications of a technology that can take, store and manipulate an actor’s data, or a politician’s, for that matter. For actors, that means putting their image, movements and personality into scenes they had nothing to do with, and then making that ‘data’ a reusable commodity – even without an actor’s consent.