“About half of my invoices to festivals, magazines, etc go unpaid until I have followed up and queried. Several of these haven’t been paid a year after the invoice was issued.”
Pay the Creator is a Creators’ Rights Alliance (CRA) campaign highlighting the disparity between creators and other sector workers in the areas of pay, business support and policy making.
Speaking on behalf of 350,000 creative professionals the Creators’ Rights Alliance (CRA), its members and partner organisations are calling for creators to be paid professionally and promptly and to be given the same considerations enjoyed by other sectors of industry.
Pay the Creator brings together CRA member campaigns and the work they do, tirelessly championing creator working rights.
“It is always unacceptable to expect creators to receive ‘exposure’ or ‘experience’ in place of payments, but this has become especially prevalent throughout the pandemic. It is also unacceptable to take creator’s rights without fair payment. Our creative freelancers are a key cornerstone of our economy, providing important creativity, knowledge, and expertise. Without them our books, films, magazines, television, film, theatre and music venues would be empty, devoid of content. They have been dismissed far too long as irrelevant and unimportant to those who use their services and work, as well as to policy decision makers. This must stop. Pay the Creator brings together CRA member campaigns and the work they do tirelessly championing creators’ working rights.”
Nicola Solomon, CEO Society of Authors and CRA Chair.
The challenge
Too often creators are offered payment in kind, through exposure, or opportunity, rather than financial payment for their work and rights. They are also ignored when policies are being developed and support is being given.
Creators’ work is the foundation of the largest sector within the UK economy. Yet their needs are repeatedly ignored when policy, economic and support decisions are being made.
We must bring to an end a practice that discriminates, stifles access and limits those who are able to work in our industry.
CRA member organisations already constantly campaign on these issues. Through Pay the Creator we are bringing together all our member organisations’ campaigns under one simple banner, to spread our collective message even wider.
Help us and our members ensure that all creators are:
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Paid for the work they do, and the rights they grant, on time and reflecting their skills and contributions
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Recognised for the contribution they make to the creative industries, the UK’s economy, and our wellbeing
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At the heart of government policy and decision-making process
Inequitable payment disproportionally affects those who are under-represented within the industry, limiting their chances to make a living from their creativity and to remain in the sector. It sets back any progress toward the inclusive industry that we all want to see. These unfair practices ensure that only those who come from backgrounds where they can be financially supported can sustain a career in the sector.
We cannot and should not accept the inequality of pay for creators of all kinds – writers, illustrators, photographers, musicians, actors, and artists.
How you can help:
As an organisation: Promote the campaign to your members via your newsletters and forums.
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Download the Pay the Creator logo and use it on your website and email signatures.
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Link your campaigns to the CRA website www.creatorsrightsalliance.org.
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Tell us about the campaigns you are running so we can share them with others; write to: contact (@) creatorsrightsalliance.org.
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Use #PayTheCreator on your social media feeds to highlight the best and worst in pay and contract practices.
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Contact us with case studies so we can highlight how these practices are affecting creators.
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Pledge your support to the Pay the Creator campaign here.
As a creator: download the Pay the Creator logo to use on your own website and email signatures, linking to the Pay the Creator CRA page. Use #PayTheCreator on your social media feeds to highlight the best and the worst in pay and contract practices. Pledge your support to the Pay the Creator campaign here.
As a member of the public: Use #PayTheCreator on your social media feeds. Pledge your support to the Pay the Creator campaign here.
As a Creative Business: Use the Pay the Creator logo to show your support for the campaign to your team, colleagues in the industry, and the creators you work with. Use #PayTheCreator on your social media feeds to show your support and to highlight your good practice. Pledge your support to the Pay the Creator campaign here.
CRA Member campaigns and resources HERE
Download the Pay The Creator logo HERE
Download the Pay The Creator giff HERE
“TV and radio are repeat offenders, and make it so difficult to get paid, even for expenses, that I have stopped expecting them to, and always ask for rail tickets up front. They also routinely fail to pay VAT, which needs to be claimed with a different invoice and through a different department. I have several outstanding invoices for this, some dating back years.”
Context
The creative industries are hugely important to our wellbeing. They contributed £115.9bn in Gross Value Added to the UK economy in 2019 – this was more than aerospace, automotive, life sciences and oil and gas sectors combined.
A third of people working in the creative industries are freelancers (33 per cent – around 2 million people). In some sections of the industry this proportion reaches 70 per cent. This is double the level of self-employment in the wider economy. (* Creative UK). Our creative freelancers are a key cornerstone of our economy, providing important creativity, knowledge and expertise.
A lack of professional and prompt payment makes this vital industry unnecessarily fragile both in the short and the long term. In a post-Brexit, post-pandemic world, we must nurture our assets to ensure we retain economic and cultural vibrancy.
You can find out more about our members and their work and campaigns using the links below
“Universities are very difficult to deal with, and often insist on an author being put on their payroll, with all the tax and pension implications of this. For this reason I now hesitate to deal with them.”
What our members say
“Writers – like all other workers – should be paid a fair wage for their labour, yet sadly an increasing number are being asked to work for no pay or low pay, as our Free is NOT an Option survey and campaign has found.
As a trade union, we have always stood against this practice, which devalues our members’ work. It also has a devastating impact on equality and diversity, and means that only the independently wealthy can afford to write the stories that find their way on to stage, page, screen and across our airwaves.
We therefore support this vital new campaign from the Creators’ Rights Alliance, of which WGGB is part, which rightfully demands fair pay for all creators.”
WGGB General Secretary, Ellie Peers
“The Society of Artists’ Agents (SAA) is a grouping of eleven leading agencies which represent leading illustrators and animators who are located worldwide. Member agencies are appointed by illustrators and motion artists to help them daily with a wide range of matters concerning their commercial practices including negotiation of terms with prospective commissioning clients globally. Member agencies have a great deal of experience in the business of aiming to secure commercial equity for illustrators and animators. SAA member agencies know industry-wide fair pay, safeguards and promote current and future world-class creativity. The SAA has a requirement in Clause 2 of its Code of Ethics ( as displayed at https://saahub.com/ethics/ ) that member agencies and the illustrators they represent must not work for free. The SAA is proud to be involved with and support the CRA’s Pay the Creator campaign”.
The Society of Artists’ Agents (SAA)
“Equity is proud to support the Pay the Creator campaign having battled against low wage and insecure work for over 90 years.
Our members are professionals: skilled individuals who bring their experience and their talent to every job. But too often performers and creatives are expected to give their time and energy for free, particularly members at the start of their careers. This has damaging consequences for the workforce by compounding our industries’ ongoing problem of elitism.
We must continue to campaign for fair terms and conditions so that every artist has the right to a dignified working life.”
Equity General Secretary, Paul W Fleming
“Copyright is a cornerstone of our democracy and civilisation, not only from a purely artistic perspective. Take the example of news photography. Without paying photographers for the content they create, they or their licensing companies can’t cover events professionally, and media outlets can’t report on them so vividly and effectively. Photos speak a thousand words. Filming and photographing diverse events like the Olympics, the European Championships, film festivals and premieres, and covering global news, is highly specialised, uniquely skilled, and often expensive.
Photos and video are essential for media and publishers to bring real stories to life, to engage with and accurately inform the wider public. Ensuring copyright is respected and its value understood is fundamental to the creation of visual content. This extends to photojournalism and paying photographers for their creative, skilled and often daring work not just at sporting or cultural events, but gathering news and illustrating reality with visual impact, however shocking or upsetting, affirming or momentous, the real events being captured may be.
Users of unique and powerful content are more and more pleading poverty when it comes to photo and film licensing budgets, even large production companies and established broadcasters, media outlets and publishers. Producers and executives don’t always value or understand the wider importance of photographic copyright. It should be acknowledged as a fundamental cost of business, and paid for accordingly. Requests for nominal or gratis copyright licensing set a bad precedent in troubling times.
We need to protect copyright, value it, and ensure creators can charge fair fees for their work. In doing so we protect our freedom of speech; we protect the fundamental human right to show and speak truth. In light of the current disinformation war being waged alongside the physical conflict in Ukraine, this principle is as urgent as ever.”
BAPLA Executive Board, Corky Balch
“It is vital that directors are fairly remunerated for their craft – both at the point of creating work, and as their work continues to be exploited and enjoyed. We’re pleased to be part of the Pay the Creator campaign as, by working collectively, we can ensure creatives across the sector are paid fairly.”
Directors UK Chief Executive Officer, Andy Harrower
“What this campaign – Pay The Creator – represents is a clear message to those looking to use the services of creators, whether as freelancers or employees, to be considerate towards those who produce creative work for a living.
By and large members of the Association of Photographers work as freelancers, whether as emerging talent or as established professional practitioners for still and moving images – they are all highly skilled and qualified to deliver exceptional services and deserve to be paid fairly for their talent.
Back in 2017, a report published about the exploitation of creative services provided by creators showed an average of 47% of those working in the industry as freelance*. Reducing fee rates, slow payments, and challenging contracts, have contributed to the undervaluing of their services. We also know that as a result of the pandemic, freelancers commissioned work abruptly stopped, hindering many in their ability to recover, even now.
An additional exacerbation is the transfer of value away from creators and ultimately towards entities like social media platforms that do not have the decency to pay any remuneration to image rightsholders, despite earning billions of dollars by leveraging image creators’ content against advertising fees. This must change. Simultaneously, copyright infringement on these platforms and across the internet for online commercial use remains rife for many image-makers, adding to the financial burdens freelancers face.
Budgets may have been tightened across the board, however this campaign is very timely in reminding those looking to commission freelancers, to consider what our creators have had to endure these past two years, and more. We need to re-establish and revitalise the value of our creators and show them that we respect their creativity.”
Isabelle Doran, CEO, The Association of Photographers
(*Creative Industries Federation launches drive to support freelance workforce, Jul 17, 2017)
