OUR HISTORY
ACTRA PRS was incorporated in 1983 to serve as an agent for the purpose of collecting use fee payments for ACTRA members and to give ACTRA the ability to take stronger legal action against companies that are negligent in their payments to ACTRA members. In addition, ACTRA PRS enforces the Security Agreements which we register for many productions; this attaches us to the production and ensures that ongoing use fees remain the obligation of the producer.
OUR INCOME
When ACTRA PRS was incorporated, the ACTRA PRS Board (ACTRA's National Executive), agreed that until ACTRA PRS was able to be fully self-sufficient, the ACTRA membership would be charged a service fee of 8.25%. This fee is currently 5%.
The terms of the Independent Production Agreement state that a producer must pay 0.5% on top of the Gross fees paid to performers to ACTRA PRS at the time of production. This helps us to cover the costs associated with monitoring and enforcing your use rights.Also included in the Independent Production Agreement is an administration fee, which is added to the total amount paid to ACTRA PRS by a producer whenever money becomes due for performers' use fees on a production. This amount is 1%.Any performer who is not a member of ACTRA, or whose ACTRA membership status is not in good standing is charged a 25% service charge at that time of the ACTRA PRS disbursement.
OUR GROWTH
Since its inception ACTRA PRS has grown from a staff of 3 to 15 and with the growth in staff came a growth in collections. In 1997, ACTRA PRS disbursed $1.5 million to ACTRA members. By 2000 disbursements reached an all-time high of $5.2 million. And we continue to remain true to what you believe in; we have hired staff, put systems in place to track your prgram and use fees and became aggressive with negligent producers.
Through the improved Collective Agreements (negotiated by your Union), ACTRA PRS remains strong. In the past, many significant Canadian producers did not have departments in place responsible for reporting and remitting payment to ACTRA. ACTRA PRS is now proactive. Many of these companies now have reporting departments and residuals departments, which ACTRA PRS is in contact with on a regular basis.