Are you one of the many illustrators who have recently received your annual Payback Royalties distributed by DACS? These cover secondary uses of your images, such as photocopying, and they may be under threat; resulting in a reduction in your income from Payback. But you can help.

Payback royalties derive from licences that are negotiated by the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA), and DACS shares these royalties with other parties such as publishers  – which amount to over £4 million per year for Payback claimants.

Payments are made as part of a long-standing agreement between DACS and the CLA, but CLA have told DACS that they believe that they are no longer bound by this agreement. DACS has insisted that the existing agreement must continue until its scheduled end date of September 2017, to help manage the transition to any new arrangements and protect claimants incomes in the interim. So far the CLA has not accepted this.  This dispute has the potential to affect Payback in 2015 and beyond.

To help support Payback please:

1.     Agree to be part of the sample group for AOI and DACS to collect all the data necessary to assert the rights of visual artists in a valuation exercise currently being carried out by the CLA.

2.     Send AOI any examples of where publishers may have pressed you to waive or sign away your secondary rights. These rights include reproduction by photocopying or scanning. This might have been in a contract or licence, or in an email.

Contact Derek Brazell Email at the AOI to let him know you would like to participate in the sample group, or to send on evidence of pressure to give up secondary rights (all treated in confidence).

Together AOI, Association of Photographers, EPUK, National Union of Journalists and DACS are fighting to protect your rights and the additional income Payback generates for you. We know how important this is for you; please help us.