Case Studies

In this area you will find details of case studies from CRA members relating to creators’ pay and contracts.

Late payments

“After dozens of communications, I'm still waiting for payment by **** magazine for a short story invoiced last May.” – An award-winning author

“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.” – An award-winning author

“(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.” – An award-winning author

Bad practices and payment avoidance

“A recent development from TV researchers (and sadly no matter how exalted the company, none seem to be exempt from this behaviour) is to ring and say they want to book me for an interview which will be paid. They then take up around 30-60 mins of my time “prepping for the interview,” some weeks after which I frequently discover that an on-camera interview isn’t going to happen. This seems now to be standard practice from researchers who want an expert opinion to enable them to write their script without having to do their own research or paying anyone for their time. This has now reached the point that, sadly, I have decided I no longer want to talk to TV researchers on the phone. Those few who behave like this are tarnishing the reputation of all of them.” – An award-winning author

“In 2020 I wrote an audio play titled ‘*******’. The turnaround from being approached to pitch the story to sending my second and final invoice was around 6 weeks.

On the latest project ‘*****’, it’s taken 4 months for the story to approved, with multiple delays caused by senior figures’ holidays and final (broadcaster) approval. When I finally received a contract.

On the 28th I invoiced asking for payment within 5 days, citing financial difficulty and the extraordinary delays. Their contracts say “within 30 days”, but that would mean being paid several days before the deadline for the finished script, meaning it would have been written without any reimbursement.

A week later I still haven’t been paid and can’t pay my rent.” audio dramatist and author

“This was in response to a speculative email I sent out recently looking for work (with national show):

‘Hi Annie, thanks for your email. Currently ************* [well-known specialist garden agency] do all our garden photography F.O.C. on the basis they can use the photos for publication and we can use them for any social media, publication, website use etc.

If this is something you want to work along the same basis then we would be interested? ********* [small garden design company]’

I responded: “As I am unable to work in this way, I won't take up any more of your time.”Association of Photographers member

Being asked to work for free

“I'm still routinely asked to speak by festivals, etc. who don't have a budget to pay contributors. I now refuse to do this.” – An award-winning author

“Organisations … often ask me to speak for free, or for a lunch or similar.” – An award-winning author

“A few years ago I was asked to give a talk at **** (a world famous fee-paying school). When the talk subject and date had been agreed upon, I asked about the fee and was told in a shocked voice “we don’t pay a fee, we’re a charity!”. It turned out they also expected me to travel at my own expense. This was just the first, but over the years a number of other fee-paying schools have contacted me and used the “we’re a charity” line to try and persuade me to work for free. Other authors have told me the same.” – An award-winning author

“(A) National Archive asked me to give a daytime talk a few years ago after I had a book out. They responded with astonishment when I asked about a fee. The talk didn’t happen as they said they never pay authors for doing book talks.” – An award-winning author

The Society of Authors has provided documentation which shows details of how a member was sent a contract and email correspondence relating to the publication of an anthology of short stories. The publisher was seeking to publish the anthology without paying the author an advance, and withholding payment of royalties.

Appearances and interviews

“I have been asked frequently to do TV work for free. I now always ask about the fee at the start of the conversation and the standard response is “we don’t have a budget”. At those words I now feign surprise and remark “Oh, I didn’t realise you weren’t being paid either, are you all volunteers?” to which there is usually a surprised admission that they are being paid, so I point out that, in that case, there is a budget, but no one thought to allocate any to the interviewees. This type of work usually involves at least one full day of work, plus travel expenses and they always sound astounded that I expect to be paid / reimbursed for travel.” – An award-winning author 

“In 2020 I found I was being asked to work for free doing TV filming with even more regularity than before and almost whenever I asked about a fee I would be told that “because of Covid” they couldn’t afford to pay, and the overriding insinuation was that I should be ashamed to ask for a fee when TV companies had been through so much with lockdown – because, as we all know, every author was rolling in money in 2020….” – An award-winning author

“A couple of years ago a French TV company booked me to give an interview at a London landmark. I had asked for a (very modest!) fee and they had agreed. The evening before I was due to meet them at 7am, they emailed to say I was not needed because a curator who worked at the building had agreed to do the interview for free.” – An award-winning author

“Another French TV company asked me to do a day’s filming with them and when I asked about the fee became quite outraged on the phone and actually said “no interviewee has ever expected to be paid before!”– An award-winning author

Commissioning

“…..I have been contacted by a theatre company to do some work and we have gone through most of the motions and we are at the contract signing stage. They have sent me a contract to sign (today) and as I have read through it there is the copyright/image grab clause it states:

"All photography and filming material produced will belong to Boy Blue who will hold copyright, and any other intellectual property which arises in the photography/ recordings will also belong to Boy Blue".

Has anyone dealt with theatre companies who has this type of clause in their contract? how did you come to an agreement/middle ground? or has wording that I can use?” Question on Association of Photographers forum to other members

Work for Institutions

“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.” – An award-winning author

Other

Association of Photographers member, ‘Lensi’ has a published blog-piece here: Lensi Photographyworking for free Archives - Lensi Photography on the topic. Also, a tongue-in-cheek short video clip on her Instagram, here: lensi_photography on Instagram: "Had enough footage to also edit my own #idontworkforfree ... also know as exposure / collaboration / quid pro quo and paid in sandwiches…"