SAG launches Foreign Royalties Tracker
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Actors wanting to check up on their foreign royalties have a new digital tool at their disposal. SAG has debuted an online search system that allows members to check how much money the guild has collected on their behalf when it comes to foreign royalties.
The service, called the Foreign Royalties Tracker, stems from a settlement the Screen Actors Guild reached last summer in a 2007 lawsuit filed by ‘Leave it to Beaver’ star Ken Osmond alleging that the union had withheld foreign royalties, or levies, from him and other actors. A court is expect to finalize the settlement on Friday.
Foreign governments apply levies on the sale of blank videotapes, cable transmissions and video rentals to compensate performers for reuse of their work. The funds are sent to Hollywood guilds from various collection societies.
SAG, which began working on its data collection and tracking process in 2007, said it has collected $18.1 million in foreign royalties for performers to date and distributed nearly $9 million to more than 76,000 individuals.
‘This is one more way in which we are continuing to distribute funds to our members as quickly and efficiently as possible,’’ SAG General Counsel Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said in a statement.
-- Richard Verrier
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