loebtmc - no offense taken . . .I was just relating my story, which admittedly is based on one incident.
However, I don't believe that the staff of Equity, or Equity as an entity, is charged with doing whatever it's members request. I do say that as a respectful disagreement to a very common view.
On an organizational level, I think it's interesting to note that the Business Reps are unionized separately from Equity (I know this because I interviewed and was offered a Business Rep position). If the Business Reps need their own union to protect them from AEA, I have to question the organization as a whole. It's all we've got, and I fully admit that without AEA we, as artists, would be trampled on and there would be no safety guidelines, healthcare (and so on), but I do think that AEA is seriously flawed. At the end of the day, who is actually watching out for YOU? My mistrust of AEA, in spite of my support in the lack of something better, leads me to to believe that I am the only person truly watching out for my own best interests, and if I were presented with the situation hbelden writes about, my own experience would cause me to ask myself if I was willing to possibly ruin any chance of a future with that company in order to report a tape which may or may not be improperly used. If they were selling it as a DVD in the lobby, then I'd have a problem with it. If they are preserving the production for future remount, or even to gain possible future financial backing for that particular remount, I personally would not put my relationship with the producer on the line for that. If it was a safety issue, an issue where the producer was under reporting actors salaries to the union (some producers do this to save on pension and welfare fees), or a producer was not following hourly overtime payment guidelines, breaks, etc, I would absolutely report it. In this case of intellectual property, I personally would not, especially if I had a good relationship with the producer and expected future employment.