How to Get Payments for Your Work Shown Overseas
Do you sometimes wonder if you’re missing out on payments for work? The honest answer is you might be. Sarah Phipps from The British Equity Collecting Society explains how they can help you.
By Sarah Phipps
BECS is a not-for-profit organisation working to protect and promote performers’ rights and interests
At The British Equity Collecting Society (BECS), we collect Performers’ Rights payments from overseas. These payments are generated when a production you have worked on is shown in one of the many countries that we have an agreement with. They are additional to the contractual payments that are due to you and can only be collected by a collecting society, which is what BECS is. All you need to do to make sure you’re getting these payments is sign up to BECS, for free.
BECS is a not-for-profit organisation working to protect and promote performers’ rights and interests. The BECS board, mainly made up of actors, and the BECS staff believe all performers should be paid fairly for use of their work. We are dedicated to ensuring the collection and fair distribution of performers’ rights payments is completed efficiently and transparently.
BECS membership is free, and contrary to common thinking, being a member of Equity does not mean you automatically become a member of BECS. The two organisations are separate entities and you will need to sign up with BECS directly.
To qualify for BECS membership you only need to have worked on a TV programme or film that is reasonably expected to be broadcast. As soon as you have this you are eligible for BECS membership.
BECS has one main distribution per year (usually around June/July) in which we aim to send out all payments we’ve collected for our members. Occasionally, some collections are received late, so further supplementary sums are distributed at other times of the year.
An added bonus to membership of BECS is access to discounted training programmes organised for our members. We have successfully run Spanish, French, Italian and Mandarin language courses as well as self-taping, Mind Fitness and voice over workshops.
Due to the current COVID-19 situation, all members of staff are working remotely. We are working hard to bring forward part of our main summer distribution so that payments to our members can be made earlier.
For more information on BECS and what we do please visit our website or contact us directly. We are a small but friendly team who are happy to help where we can. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to receive the latest news about payments due for release and future training courses.
BECS promotes its members’ rights and collects revenue from collective administration of rights worldwide. It is free to join BECS. Please register to ensure you do not miss out on payments for your work being shown overseas.
Image by Christian Dubovan via Unsplash.
