@Anonymous

Perhaps you missed this part of the PR

“Direct Models has retained attorney Karen Tynan to assist its clients in fully pursuing all legally available remedies and claims to resolve any and all failure to pay and or failure to pay timely, for the employment procured by the agency on their behalf,” said Derek”

So do your homework or troll short bus window lickers who might swap drool with ya. Suing the sleazeball using new wage laws means other sleazeballs will think twice about flaking on talent pay…if he’ll sue a producer for flaking then he has more pull to make sure talent doesn’t flake either.

Mike and a poster here discussed Derek Hay’s talent practices more than once, Brian Berke talked about his agency accepting payments for talent as well. Kink showed giving talent a check for their services directly after the scene in a BTS video from about 2007-2008. There is an article on here from a few years ago where a talent poster said Vivid withheld taxes and treated talent as employees as far as taxation purposes were concerned (sorry, I don’t have a link but I did read it just yesterday). James Deen cited in the APAC Porn 101 video that some companies paid via payroll with taxes withheld as well. I already cited Sharon and Nina from the AIM Porn 101 video. There are many articles (Brian Berke also cited his doing so on his blog when he ran an agency in Florida) that discuss agents advancing airfare, temporary housing (in Brian’s case he provided the temporary housing for a weekly fee and allowed talent to stay in his home before being paid), food and other incidentals.

Happy, Hop Sing (if that is really your name)?

Matt-

Can you cite a few of your “sources over the past 7-8 years?”

According to Sharon Mitchell and Nina Hartley (on one of the AIM Porn 101 DVDs) in the 80’s and 90’s many sets paid cash. A bit later checks were cut but the director cashed them on set. Later on in the 90’s checks were cut and given to talent directly after the scene was filmed (other sources show that Kink did this into the late 2000’s). Now (from several sources over the past 7-8 years) I understand some companies still cut independent contractor/1099 reportable checks and issue them immediately after the scene is completed whereas larger companies send checks to talent in the mail with employee FICA/Medicare, Federal, State and Local taxes deducted (I don’t recall any jurisdictions in Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, San Francisco or Marin Counties have local income taxes; I would have to check for other common residence cities/counties such as Riverside, San Bernardino, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa and Santa Clara commonly encountered with porn talent).

A couple of agents still offer the option of having payroll checks sent to them (Derek Hay being one, I have read of him actually attempting to insist on paychecks being sent to him but because of legal liability on the part of the producing company if talent isn’t paid he probably isn’t having much luck on that with the larger production companies that deduct employment taxes, pay their 7.65% FICA/Medicare share and mail checks directly to talent with that request) with the agent cashing them, deducting their fees for representation, transportation, advanced airfare/food/travel incidentals (I don’t think anyone actually travels to California on a Greyhound bus anymore although the term “fresh off the bus” was used in promotion anyway until very recently; now that I have said that some fresh, nubile 18 year old cutie is probably going to have a fear of flying and insist on taking Greyhound halfway across the country to prove me wrong), lodging (whether it be in a model house or advance payments to a local hotel) and other fees/advances and direct depositing or mailing one combined check along with mailing the check stubs (with company names and tax deductions listed) as well as an itemization of any agency charges and/or advances deducted.

Indeed – you’d think they’d leave the cash on the dresser, right?

Actually the larger companies do pay via payroll. Evidently they do actually pay, though as you never hear of studios like Kink, Intersec/Insex, New Sensations and Hustler not paying their talent.

One thing that makes me wonder here, though. Years ago Nina Hartley said she and several other high-level talent created corporations that were paid for their work for tax reasons (that one is way too complicated to get into here and I would need to research a bit to make sure the IRS policies haven’t changed recently). Those performers paid via their corporation might not have the option to file a complaint with the California Labor Commission like these performers did as at least to the IRS payments to a personal corporation are not considered wages (although if the job doesn’t meet the criteria for independent contractor status the “employer” could be forced to pay Nina’s and others similarly situated as people and not as a corporation, James Deen said in APAC’s Porn 101 that some adult industry producers pay via payroll with FICA, Medicare, federal and state taxes withheld — likely because of this issue although he didn’t say that specifically). That would be something for Derek and other agents to speak to their attorneys about so they can advise their clients appropriately.