Unions vs. freedom

The Australian equivalent of the Screen Actors Guild has apparently refused to allow its members to participate in a film project--because the project would be licensed under a Creative Commons license.

The MEAA Board decided that it could grant none of the dispensations sought by MOD Films, on the grounds that these would be “inappropriate”. The production had asked for dispensations and support for its world-first plans to employ professional actors in a film with only “Some Rights Reserved” by the production company. The company intends to permit non-commercial use and re-voicing of the film by the audience. The MEAA also rejected the option of any further negotiations with MOD Films.

MOD Films had sought a dispensation, since early January, to allow professional Australian actors to participate in the short (15 minute) film and had worked with actors agents to communicate the extent of the project before auditions. The cast chosen for Sanctuary had been offered 110% on top of the MEAA award rate to take part in the experiment.

MOD Films is using the Creative Commons licensing scheme that expressly permits more audience freedom than All Rights Reserved. The Creative Commons was first devised in 2002 and Australian-specific licenses were released in February. Mash-up and re-mix potential is an intrinsic part of the Sanctuary project – empowering the audience to exercise greater control over purchased film content and treating re-use as an opportunity as opposed to a threat. Audience re-use is already prevalent in the computer games industry, often referred to as MOD'ing, and certain bestselling games have started out as MODs (e.g. Counter Strike). MOD Films is exploring how this may work creatively and commercially with films.