How does Screenrights distribute the royalties it collects?
Screenrights determines the total amount collected in a financial year and then deducts its operating expenses for that year from this amount. Once these expenses have been deducted, an allocation of 0.25% of the total distributable amount is made to a fund known as the IBNR Fund. This fund is used to meet “claims incurred but not reported”. A further deduction is then made to an Artistic Works fund (1.9% for Australian educational royalties) to pay rightsholders in artistic works. After these deductions have been made, all copied programs are categorised as either ephemeral in nature (that is, programs that are not likely to be kept as an ongoing resource, such as news and magazine style current affairs programs) or as “other”. This category affects the dollar value allocated to each minute copied with ephemeral programs receiving less than other programs. Screenrights can then determine the total amount that should be allocated to each title identified as having been copied. The next
