“Residuals” is the industry term for payments made to performers under contract with producers or as a result of industry agreements. Such agreements generally specify payments to performers at the time of their performance, and additional payments for later use of the recorded performance.

The right to receive these payments is not specified in the Copyright Act: rather, it arises from the recording and communication rights of performers, which give them the right to control certain uses of their performances, and therefore to negotiate the conditions on which they agree to be filmed or recorded or broadcast.

Residual payments are generally associated with television performances. They are unlikely to be affected by ownership rights that a performer may have in a sound recording.