The New York Production Alliance (NYPA) added four seats to its board, bringing the total to 25. Starting as 07-’08 members are: John Held, former executive director of the AICE; Benji Whitehouse of Axium International; Elias Scoropanos of HSBC Bank USA, N.A.; and Terry Lawler of New York Women In Film and Television. Starting additional two-year terms are: John Amman of Local 600, Tom Liebau of Televest Daytime Programming, Burke Moody of the AICE, Lynne Twentyman of Local 161, Eileen Newman of Renew Media, Jae Je Simmons of the Screen Actors Guild and Carl Zucker of Media Services, and Anne K. Johnson. They join Jack Turney of the AICP, Roberta Reardon of the American Federation of TV and Radio Actors, Dennis Reiff of DR Reiff & Associates, Stuart Suna of Silvercup Studios, Lydia Deal Pilcher of the Producers Guild of America, John Ford of Local 52, Russ Hollander of the Directors Guild of America, Mitchell Kreigman of Wainscott Studios and Doug Steiner of Steiner Studios who start the second half of their NYPA terms along with chairman emeritus Morton Dubin.
TikTok Creators Left In Limbo As Supreme Court Considers Potential Platform Ban
Will TikTok be banned this month?
That's the pressing question keeping creators and small business owners in anxious limbo as they await a decision that could upend their livelihoods. The fate of the popular app will be decided by the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments on Jan. 10 over a law requiring TikTok to break ties with its Chinese-based parent company, ByteDance, or face a U.S. ban.
At the heart of the case is whether the law violates the First Amendment with TikTok and its creator allies arguing that it does. The U.S. government, which sees the platform as a national security risk, says it does not.
For creators, the TikTok doomsday scenarios are nothing new since President-elect Donald Trump first tried to ban the platform through executive order during his first term. But despite Trump's recent statements indicating he now wants TikTok to stick around, the prospect of a ban has never been as immediate as it is now with the Supreme Court serving as the final arbiter.
If the government prevails as it did in a lower court, TikTok says it would shut down its U.S. platform by Jan. 19, leaving creators scrambling to redefine their futures.
"A lot of my other creative friends, we're all like freaking out. But I'm staying calm," said Gillian Johnson, who benefited financially from TikTok's live feature and rewards program, which helped creators generate higher revenue potential by posting high-quality original content. The 22-year-old filmmaker and recent college graduate uses her TikTok earnings to help fund her equipment for projects such as camera lens and editing software for her short films "Gambit" and "Awaken! My Neighbor."
Johnson said the idea of TikTok going away is "hard to accept."
Many creators... Read More