WhoSay offers celebrities the right to retain control over their images

Tom Hanks likes to use Twitter to share the occasional on set photo with his 1.8 million followers. Now there is a site where those photos can be sent that allow him and other celebrities to have a new sense of control over their presence on social media.

People on Twitter can use services like TwitPic, Yfrog or Plixi to share photos with their friends and family.  Celebrities have concerns with these services because they aquire ownership rights to uploaded photos and can place ads alongside them. Enter a new company called WhoSay that offers similar services, but ownership of uploaded images are retained by the stars themselves.

WhoSay has been up and running out of the Los Angeles office building of the Creative Artists Agency since last year. CAA represents an impressive list of famous names, including Hanks. His WhoSay site includes the words “copyright Tom Hanks” along with fine print at the bottom declaring his legal ownership of all content and a warning of “fines and imprisonment” for improper use.

There are 15 people on staff at WhoSay in offices in New York, London and Los Angeles.  Creative Artists and Amazon.com are among investors in the company.
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Live in Cleveland? Want to see Tom Hanks?

Tom Hanks has never forgotten the Cleveland theater company that gave him his start as an actor and will come back for a fundraiser on October 12th.

He’ll be doing a show called “Tom Hanks at the Hanna” at the downtown Hanna Theatre.

The theater was home of the Great Lakes Theater Festival, which was called the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival when he was hired in 1977 for his first acting job, paying $45 a week.

He worked at the theater for three summers and got his Actors’ Equity card while there.

Top seats for the upcoming event are $250 and include dinner with him.

Proceeds will go toward the Hanna’s restoration.

Ed Asner says Tom Hanks and Alec Baldwin sent SAG up the river

Tom Hanks wants you to Vote "Yes"

Video: Tom Hanks and Ron Howard talk "Angels and Demons"

Julia Roberts roasts Tom Hanks

Julia Robert’s introduced – more like roasted – Tom Hanks at Film Society of Lincoln Center’s tribute to Tom Hanks last night.

Watch it, it’s pretty funny!

Clips: 'Angels and Demons'

I’m not as anxious to see this sequel (prequel?) to The DaVinci Code as much as I was the first one. Maybe it’s because I didn’t read the book?

These two clips look good though.

No Thanks, Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks has been pretty vocal about his desire for SAG to accept the AMPTP‘s offer. Well, this woman has heard him and now she’s responding.

Clip: Angels & Demons

Director Ron Howard brings back Tom Hanks in the sequel to The DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons. It also stars Ewan McGregor & Stellan Skarsgård.

Click below for the clip!

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Tom Hanks to the rescue?

Tom Hanks (along with George Clooney) have decided enough is enough; its time to help the little guy.

He has made calls to executives asking them to find some sort of compromise with SAG and it looks like it has helped.

From the LA Times:

Several top media executives, including News Corp. President Peter Chernin and Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger, have talked among themselves this week about how to resolve the dispute with SAG. Chernin and Iger played a pivotal role in helping to craft the deal with Hollywood’s directors and writers.

Three weeks after the breakdown in contract negotiations, SAG leaders — including interim Executive Director David White and chief negotiator John McGuire — have been having informal “back-channel” talks with studio executives this week in an effort to break a logjam in talks, said people close to the situation.

The back-channel communications began late last week after the union took a break in its negotiations on a new commercials contract.  It’s unclear, however, whether the talks will yield to a breakthrough, paving the way for a return to formal negotiations between the union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of the studios. The current contract expired nearly nine months ago and actors have been working without a contract.

The conversations are primarily focused on finding a compromise over the key sticking point: When would SAG’s contract expire? SAG leaders want their contract to run through June, 2011, so the union can line up its next round of negotiations with the contracts of other Hollywood talent unions, including the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and the Writers Guild of America.

There are signs, however, that both sides may be willing to compromise. “The CEOs are actively talking among themselves about a search for a possible solution,” said one person familiar with the talks.

The deadlock has been an embarrassment to SAG’s new leaders, who were installed by a moderate majority on the union’s board that accused former leaders of mishandling negotiations and pushing SAG toward the brink of a strike.

Meanwhile, DHD is reporting that the end of the contract is the only sticking point. Not New Media, not residuals. The end of the contract. That’s it.

Because my own insiders and even the LA Times‘ sources say the new SAG leaders are only bargaining the issue of the contract’s expiration date. (To be absolutely accurate, the LA Times soft-pedals this as “primarily” but mentions no other terms being discussed.) So the sole dispute between the Hollywood CEOs and the SAG National Majority right now is about whether the pact runs only 2 years or 3, and only that because it could prevent a SAG/AFTRA merger.

This is our sacred union. The union we pays dues to every six months. The one that places its members first. Right?

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