Legal and Ethical Considerations When Working In The Creative Media Sector

Legal and Ethical Considerations When Working In The Creative Media Sector


When working in the creative sector there are many legal and ethical constraints to consider before releasing any form of media to the public. Failure to comply with any of these rules can result in jail time, a fine, a loss of job and reputation, censorship of the material deemed offensive or banning. Due to this content creators have to be mindful of the various laws operating the this sector. It is vital for a content producer to be aware of and comply with these legal and ethical regulations as failure to comply can result in cuts to their end product or even the whole end product being banned, this means that they cannot make a profit from their film or other media product and hae lost money, this would also be a defeat for the creator because no one would see what they had worked so hard to create simply because of a lack of compliance with these rules. Ignorance towards these rules could even result in fines or just general unfavourable views from critics and the audience as many of these rules are in place to protect the public from innapropriate or offensive content.

Legal Constraints
The majority of the rules connected to media content are on a legal basis as there are many legal issues to take into consideration when making media content such as copyright etc.

Libel Law
Libel law is the law which prevents the reputation of someone against an unjustified, unwarranted attack. According to the law if a publication exposes them to hatred or make him seem lesser in the minds of "right-thinking members of society" then the publication and its creator are in violation of libel law. Libel law is in place to protect the reputations and well being of people who may come under harsh criticism from the media, libel law is necessary because if a particular publication is producing false information which is believed by the public the person under critisicm could be "defamed" or even face considerable hatred or even have their life at risk because of this misinformation. Libel law does however allow such critisicm if the information given is based on true facts and not influenced by personal hatred or malice for the person under critisicm. Comments made in parliament and courts are however protected from libel law because of their official nature.

Privacy Law
Privacy law is the law that ensures that the right to freedom of privacy is not infringed upon. This means that a publication cannot reveal personal details about a person without said persons consent. This prevents a person from revealig personal information or media content without that person expressed consent, the law is in place to protect peoples human right to privacy and to ensure that no harm or distress should come to a person because of private content being published.

Obscene Publications Act 1959 (later amended)
The Obscene Publications act is a law which prevents the public from witnessing published content which is unsuitable for viewing due to an obscene nature. The law states that for content to be considered too obscene for public viewing it must be "taken as a whole, tend to be deprave and corrupt." This means that if the whole of the content is deemed to be disturbing and "corrupt" then it is unsuitable for public viewing. Educational content however "in the interests of science, literature, art or learning or of other objects of general conern" are deemed exempt from this law due to the educational nature of the content. The law is in place to protect the public from such content that may harm or deeply offend potential viewers. A film in breach of the obscene publications act is The Human Centipede 2. The film was banned in the UK and cannot be supplied legally anywhere in the country by DVD or download. The BBFC (British Board Of Film Classification) had deemedit potentially harmful to viewers and had banned it in the UK due to it's graphic content. A quote from the BBFC on the film stated that "There is little attempt to portray any of the victims in the film as anything other than objects to be brutalised, degraded and mutilated for the amusement and arousal of the central character, as well as for the pleasure of the audience." The BBFC decided that the films content had no purpoise other than to shock viewers and as a whole was "depraved and corrupt" in accordance with the Obscene publications act. They had decided that since the entire film infringed upon the law that there would be no cuts possible to make it acceptable for viewing in the UK.

Copyright/Intellectual Property Law
Copyright and intellectual property law is the law that protects content creators from plagiarism. It protects any creative work considered the property of its creator. Intellectual property is unique to the person. The word a person writed are their intellectual property however the idea itself is not. Copyright is in place to pretect the content of creators from theft by other creators. A violation of copyright would be a person copying another persons written work or parts of a film for their own use. Violating copright law and stealing someones intellectual property can result in fines or even jail time. It will aslo result in the copyrighted work becoming useless as it wilol not be allowed to be released as it not enrtirely your own work.


Official Secrets Act 1989
The official secrets act is a law which prevents any publication from publishing information from a current or former member of security and intelligence services if the information wreleased would be damaging. The official secrets act is used to protect government secrets and data generally meant to be unaccessable to the general public which can cause harm to an establishment or country should the data be read by people who were never intended to read it. Enforcing of this law is usually stern and harsh, as "whistleblowers" are commonly given jailtime for releasing sensitive data.


Health And Safety Act
The health and safety act is a law which is in place to prevent unneccessary dangerous and possibly life threatening accidents while working. This law indicates that in order to be deemed safe you must; define responsibilities and duties, have a system in place for managing health and safety, assess and manage the risks involved and regularly review the process and procedures for managing risks. The size of a management system for health and safety depends on the size of the production, with bigger productions needing much bigger, more complex management systems to ensure safety. Risk assessment for a proudction requires you to; systematically look at your activities, examine the hazards they pose, evaluate how likely a person is to encounter these hazards and find a way to remove the hazard completely or at least keep them under control.

Ethical

There are various ethical rules to follow when working in the creative media sector, these are ot always actual laws but can still render a film unsuitable or have cuts made to it due to an unethical nature of the film or publication. Ethical rules prevent media featuring disturbing or offensive content from being released to the public where it may be damaging. Some of these media ethics include; not causing harm or offense, harsh language/violence and sex, product placement, use of stereotypes and proper/fair representations. Nearly all media ethics are in place because it is determined that the public would respond harshly to some content and to avoid unnecessary harm and offense such content is regulated. Due to these media ethics different types of shows like reality tv shows have different rules of conduct. Reality TV shows are expected to provide aftercare or counselling some such rules include a limitation on alcohol or no footage of an intoxicated person be shown, no minors are to be involved and there must be medical care avaliable. These are ethical rules and regulation because it may cause the people involved and the audience some distress which is ideally avoided. There are also some vague areas in ethical considerations in the media. This is because many are not actually rules or laws so while a content creator may ignore these it can result in a serious backlash from the public and the media. An example of content being produced without consideration for ethical constraints is Big Brother. During a season of Big Brother a contestant was allowed into the show who had a history of mental illness and had been placed into a coma due to a failed suicide attempt. This led to large critisism from the media as it was deemed ethical wrong to allow a person with a long history of mental illness onto the show which can be a very stressfull environment for contestants.