• Reuters, Tuesday, May 13, 2008 12:16 PM

The Web is once again at the center of a dispute between the major Hollywood studios and their entertainment industry constituents. This time, it's the actors who want to make sure they're compensated appropriately when their images appear in video clips on the Internet. The main questions are whether actors should have to give consent for online clips of their work, and how much they should be paid for it. Studios, of course, would rather not have to pay actors on an individual basis; they want to see a flat fee to expedite the process and make it cheaper for them to get the word out about their films and TV shows.

But therein lies the problem, Reuters said. Studios and broadcast networks have always been free to use promotional clips (ads, trailers) without paying the actors extra, but when the clips in question are seen as entertainment-such as lengthy clips on YouTube-things get a little trickier. Producers would need the consent of every actor appearing in the clip and cut an individual compensation with each one of them.

Meanwhile, the actors union isn't budging. "What they're asking us to do is erase 50 years of our customs and practice," Alan Rosenberg, President of the Screen Actors Guild told Reuters in a recent interview. According to Web research firm comScore, 134 million Americans view online videos each month, with YouTube alone attracting 80 million unique visitors monthly.

Read the whole story at Reuters »