Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/308664
For Members 16 SAG-AFTRA | Spring 2014 | SAGAFTRA.org T his year marked a first for SAG-AFTRA in its annual visit to the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas. During the March 7-16 film, interactive and music conference, the SAG-AFTRA Sound Recordings Department presented a SXSW Music showcase featuring six up-and-coming acts. Performing to a packed house at Buffalo Billiards on March 11 were A HISTORIC YEAR FOR SAG-AFTRA AT SXSW Wardell, Hudson, Caught a Ghost, Madi Diaz, Avi Buffalo and Greylag. Wardell is a rising indie folk rock band featuring SAG-AFTRA member Sasha Spielberg and brother eo, who are the children of film director Steven Spielberg. SAG-AFTRA, SAGindie and the Screen Actors Guild Foundation showed up in force, with a full slate of official SXSW film, interactive and music events, workshops and receptions for SAG-AFTRA members and festival-goers. Signature events included the SAG-AFTRA, SAG-AFTRA New Media and SAGindie booth at the SXSW Trade Show, a SAGindie and DGA co-hosted film industry reception, and a members- only mixer hosted by the SAG-AFTRA Texas locals. In addition, on March 8, SAG Foundation presented a SXSW hands-on workshop for actors titled How to Book Your Next Audition. is setting allowed participants to work individually with top casting directors Beth Sepko, Matthew Lessall, Sarah Finn and Susan Shopmaker, and was moderated by SAG Foundation's Rochelle Rose. Participants prepared and presented their material to the casting directors, who also reviewed headshots, resumes and provided substantive feedback and direction to help actors develop their audition technique. e next day, SAG Foundation, in partnership with the SAG-AFTRA Houston-Austin Local, hosted a full day of free casting workshops at the University of Texas at Austin exclusively for SAG-AFTRA performers. Members of the band Wardell WHAT THE FIGHT AGAINST AEREO MEANS FOR MEMBERS B y early summer, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue an opinion in a case — ABC v. Aereo — that has potential to change the way audiences consume television content and which could have far-reaching implications, including for SAG-AFTRA members. SAG-AFTRA, together with the Writers Guild of America, West and the Directors Guild of America, filed a "friend of the court" brief (available at SAGAFTRA. org), to help the court understand that this is not just a fight between technology and media companies and that our membership will be impacted by its outcome. Aereo is a service that captures over- the-air local broadcast television signals using thousands of micro-antennas and then retransmits the content via the Internet to its subscribers — a system one circuit judge called a "Rube Goldberg-like contrivance" designed to avoid complying with the law. Nearly half a century ago, cable television providers placed antennas on hilltops and ran coaxial cable to the nearby neighborhoods to retransmit broadcasts to their subscribers, also without permission from the television producers and networks. e Supreme Court twice held this to be legal because residents could have done the same thing on their own. e decision in those cases prompted sweeping changes to copyright law in 1976, including express restrictions on retransmission of content that were written broadly to encompass new technologies. But Aereo is now using the same argument cable companies used then — that they are just doing what users can do for themselves. Cable and satellite providers are subject to regulation and must pay for the right to retransmit television broadcasts to their subscribers. Aereo retransmits over-the-air broadcasts without consent and without paying these license fees. Everyone who works in film and television depends on broadcasters' and licensors' revenue. As advertising revenues decrease, broadcasters have come to rely heavily on cable and satellite retransmission fees to pay for content. Decreases in broadcasters' revenue reduce the licensing fees they can pay the studios. at could lead to a race to the bottom, with studios forced to cut production budgets or replace more expensive scripted content with lower-cost scripted and "reality" content to maintain profitability. Some networks have even threatened to move to a cable-only model to protect their investment in content. Unauthorized services like Aereo also pose impediments to the development of licensed Internet services and can impact license fees paid by services like Netflix, Hulu or iTunes. As a result, residuals, salaries and job opportunities for SAG-AFTRA members may be damaged by parasitic technologies that unfairly compete with legal, licensed distribution models. Click here to read the Friend of the Court Brief