Fair pay/play in the UK voice-over industries: a survey of 200+ voice-overs

This is the final version. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.The emergence of online peer-to-peer recruitment platforms, which have introduced Uber-like business models for the commissioning of creative content, brings both threats and opportunities to the UK creative economy. This research investigates the impact of these platforms from the perspective of a specific market: the UK voice-over industries. This is done by analyzing levels of remuneration, recruitment and contractual practices as well as the role played by intellectual property rights in monetizing the work of voice-over performers. This pilot study follows two recent reforms of EU regulations: the first regards fairness in relation to authors’ and performers’ remuneration (via intellectual property rights); the second focuses on fairness and transparency in the contractual terms and conditions practiced by online intermediation services (such as online peer-to-peer recruitment platforms).[1] This research is also preceded by a report on the remuneration of creative labour in the digital environment published by the World Intellectual Property Organization[2] and important seminal academic work on this question.[3] In a two-part analysis, this study demonstrates that online peer-to-peer recruitment platforms defeat the framework of intellectual property (copyright and performers’ rights) on a global scale. The research findings are outlined in two reports. The first report (this document) analyzes the findings of the online survey carried by the research team to capture the experience of voice-over performers on remuneration, recruitment, contract and intellectual property. The second report contrasts these results with a review of online peer-to-peer recruitment platforms’ terms and conditions, scheduled to be released by January 2020. The results of the survey show that: online peer-to-peer recruitment platforms are perceived very negatively by voice-over performers; the use of written contracts, summarizing the key aspects of a transaction is extremely rare; and, there is a critical lack of awareness of intellectual property rights within voice-over performers paired with a perceived lack of representation by unions or organizations to defend and advance their rights. At the same time, the survey also evidences that the UK voice-over market is extremely versatile, and contributes to an impressive range of cultural, communication and entertainment sectors. The survey thus evidences that the UK voice-over industries are a key contributor to the country’s creative economy. As such, national policy-makers must take measures to safeguard the market’s resilience in the global digital environment, which in this case, includes addressing the role and impact of online peer-to-peer recruitment platforms. The research concludes that the contractual terms currently practiced by online peer-to-peer recruitment platforms pose a threat to the UK intellectual property framework. However, preliminary investigation also suggests that these platforms could become an opportunity to introduce principles of contractual best practice on a global scale, should their terms and conditions be appropriately revised. [1] Directive (EU) 2019/790 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market and amending Directives 96/9/EC and 2001/29/EC (Text with EEA relevance.). PE/51/2019/REV/1. OJ L 130, 17.5.2019, p. 92–125; Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services (Text with EEA relevance) PE/56/2019/REV/1 OJ L 186, 11.7.2019, p. 57–79. [2] Alexander Cuntz, Creators’ Income Situation in the Digital Age, Economic Research Working Paper No 49 (WIPO, 2018). [3] Focusing on the UK and EU studies, Martin Kretschmer and others, UK Authors’ Earnings and Contracts 2018: A Survey of 50,000 Writers, CREATe, 2019); Lucie Guibault and others, Remuneration of authors and performers for the use of their works and the fixations of their performances (Study for European Commission DG Communications Networks, Content & Technology, 2015); Lucie Guibault and Olivia Salamanca (Europe Economics), Remuneration of authors of books and scientific journals, translators, journalists and visual artists for the use of their works (Study for European Commission DG Communications Networks, Content & Technology, 2016). On creators use of intellectual property: Townley and others, Creating Economy: Enterprise, Intellectual Property and the Valuation of Goods (OUP, 2018).Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC

Supporting positive dimensions of health, challenges in mental health care

This paper will explore two contrasting paradigms in mental health care and their relationship to evidence-based practice. The biomedical perspective of pathogenesis and the health perspective of salotogenesis are two major diverse views in mental health care. Positive dimensions of health are traditionally viewed as software not suitable for statistical analysis, while absence of symptoms of disease are regarded as measurable and suitable for statistical analysis and appropriate as a foundation of evidence-based practice. If the main goal of mental health care is to enhance subjectively experienced health among patients, it will not be sufficient to evaluate absence of symptoms of disease as a measure of quality of care. The discussion focuses on the paradox of evidence-based absence of illness and disease versus subjectively experienced health and well-being as criterions of quality of care in mental health care

Lifestyle behaviours of young adult survivors of childhood cancer

This cross-sectional study collected baseline data on the health behaviours of a large population of survivors of childhood cancer in the UK, aged 18–30 years, compared with those of sex- and age-matched controls. Data from 178 young adult survivors of childhood cancer, diagnosed and treated at Bristol Children's Hospital, 184 peers from the survivors' GP practices and 67 siblings were collected by postal questionnaire. Conditional logistic regression analysis showed that, for matched sets of survivors and controls, survivors of a variety of childhood cancers reported lower levels of alcohol consumption (P=0.005), lower levels of cigarette smoking (P=0.027) and lower levels of recreational drug use (P=0.001) than controls. Analysis of matched sets of survivors and siblings showed similar trends but no significant differences. A health behaviour index for each participant was constructed from the data collected on five key health behaviours which influence future health status. Comparison of the means for each case group showed that survivors of childhood cancer were leading healthier lives than controls or siblings. This finding was expressed most clearly as the difference in the means of the health behaviour index for each case group, derived from five health behaviours (one-way ANOVA, P<0.001)

Fructan and its relationship to abiotic stress tolerance in plants

Numerous studies have been published that attempted to correlate fructan concentrations with freezing and drought tolerance. Studies investigating the effect of fructan on liposomes indicated that a direct interaction between membranes and fructan was possible. This new area of research began to move fructan and its association with stress beyond mere correlation by confirming that fructan has the capacity to stabilize membranes during drying by inserting at least part of the polysaccharide into the lipid headgroup region of the membrane. This helps prevent leakage when water is removed from the system either during freezing or drought. When plants were transformed with the ability to synthesize fructan, a concomitant increase in drought and/or freezing tolerance was confirmed. These experiments indicate that besides an indirect effect of supplying tissues with hexose sugars, fructan has a direct protective effect that can be demonstrated by both model systems and genetic transformation

School-based prevention for adolescent Internet addiction: prevention is the key. A systematic literature review

Adolescents’ media use represents a normative need for information, communication, recreation and functionality, yet problematic Internet use has increased. Given the arguably alarming prevalence rates worldwide and the increasingly problematic use of gaming and social media, the need for an integration of prevention efforts appears to be timely. The aim of this systematic literature review is (i) to identify school-based prevention programmes or protocols for Internet Addiction targeting adolescents within the school context and to examine the programmes’ effectiveness, and (ii) to highlight strengths, limitations, and best practices to inform the design of new initiatives, by capitalizing on these studies’ recommendations. The findings of the reviewed studies to date presented mixed outcomes and are in need of further empirical evidence. The current review identified the following needs to be addressed in future designs to: (i) define the clinical status of Internet Addiction more precisely, (ii) use more current psychometrically robust assessment tools for the measurement of effectiveness (based on the most recent empirical developments), (iii) reconsider the main outcome of Internet time reduction as it appears to be problematic, (iv) build methodologically sound evidence-based prevention programmes, (v) focus on skill enhancement and the use of protective and harm-reducing factors, and (vi) include IA as one of the risk behaviours in multi-risk behaviour interventions. These appear to be crucial factors in addressing future research designs and the formulation of new prevention initiatives. Validated findings could then inform promising strategies for IA and gaming prevention in public policy and education

Trapping in irradiated p-on-n silicon sensors at fluences anticipated at the HL-LHC outer tracker

The degradation of signal in silicon sensors is studied under conditions expected at the CERN High-Luminosity LHC. 200 $\mu$m thick n-type silicon sensors are irradiated with protons of different energies to fluences of up to $3 \cdot 10^{15}$ neq/cm$^2$. Pulsed red laser light with a wavelength of 672 nm is used to generate electron-hole pairs in the sensors. The induced signals are used to determine the charge collection efficiencies separately for electrons and holes drifting through the sensor. The effective trapping rates are extracted by comparing the results to simulation. The electric field is simulated using Synopsys device simulation assuming two effective defects. The generation and drift of charge carriers are simulated in an independent simulation based on PixelAV. The effective trapping rates are determined from the measured charge collection efficiencies and the simulated and measured time-resolved current pulses are compared. The effective trapping rates determined for both electrons and holes are about 50% smaller than those obtained using standard extrapolations of studies at low fluences and suggests an improved tracker performance over initial expectations

Mechanical stability of the CMS strip tracker measured with a laser alignment system

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Description and performance of track and primary-vertex reconstruction with the CMS tracker

A description is provided of the software algorithms developed for the CMS tracker both for reconstructing charged-particle trajectories in proton-proton interactions and for using the resulting tracks to estimate the positions of the LHC luminous region and individual primary-interaction vertices. Despite the very hostile environment at the LHC, the performance obtained with these algorithms is found to be excellent. For tbar t events under typical 2011 pileup conditions, the average track-reconstruction efficiency for promptly-produced charged particles with transverse momenta of pT > 0.9GeV is 94% for pseudorapidities of |η| < 0.9 and 85% for 0.9 < |η| < 2.5. The inefficiency is caused mainly by hadrons that undergo nuclear interactions in the tracker material. For isolated muons, the corresponding efficiencies are essentially 100%. For isolated muons of pT = 100GeV emitted at |η| < 1.4, the resolutions are approximately 2.8% in pT, and respectively, 10μm and 30μm in the transverse and longitudinal impact parameters. The position resolution achieved for reconstructed primary vertices that correspond to interesting pp collisions is 10–12μm in each of the three spatial dimensions. The tracking and vertexing software is fast and flexible, and easily adaptable to other functions, such as fast tracking for the trigger, or dedicated tracking for electrons that takes into account bremsstrahlung

Test beam performance measurements for the Phase I upgrade of the CMS pixel detector

A new pixel detector for the CMS experiment was built in order to cope with the instantaneous luminosities anticipated for the Phase I Upgrade of the LHC. The new CMS pixel detector provides four-hit tracking with a reduced material budget as well as new cooling and powering schemes. A new front-end readout chip mitigates buffering and bandwidth limitations, and allows operation at low comparator thresholds. In this paper, comprehensive test beam studies are presented, which have been conducted to verify the design and to quantify the performance of the new detector assemblies in terms of tracking efficiency and spatial resolution. Under optimal conditions, the tracking efficiency is (99.95 ± 0.05) %, while the intrinsic spatial resolutions are (4.80 ± 0.25) μm and (7.99 ± 0.21) μm along the 100 μm and 150 μm pixel pitch, respectively. The findings are compared to a detailed Monte Carlo simulation of the pixel detector and good agreement is found.Peer reviewe