Chapter 2 The legal and Ethical constraints of the creative media sector

Ethical And Legal

Ethical:

Social Issue's and Sensitivities: ethics are the social opinion of people, which is usually what is right and what isn't. such as on forms of comedy like south park, some people may like it and want more episodes when some think it is inappropriate and think it should be canceled.

• Representation Of Gender: Gender is a system we use for sorting the types of humans and is usually a troubling issue when discussing both representation in media. Many things, not just people are represented in the media industry by masculine or feminine (mainly in advertising) and over time people have become more aware of what is appropriate characteristics. such as in after shave adverts or perfume adverts.
• Representation Of Religious Beliefs: in media, religion is one of many things that is not brought up in the wrong way unless your south park. when making anything in media you have to make sure it is tolerable for people of a different religious belief. such as when south park made an episode featuring a religious prophet and mocked said prophet. thus the episode was banned from airing again.
• Linguistic usages: in some countries the use of their native tong is used much in media such as news or their shows in their countries. but internationally if an English show is shown in Germany it will be voiced over with another language.

Professional body codes of practice:

• BBC producers' guidelines: All audiences expect the best Ethical and Editorial from the BBC's broadcast. These are the guidelines for the BBC producers.

1. Accuracy
2. Impartiality
3. Harm and Offence
4. Fairness, Contributors and Consent
5. Privacy
6. Reporting Crime and Anti-Social Behavior
7. Children and Young People As Contributors
8. Politics, Public Policy and Polls
9. War, Terror and Emergencies
10. Religion
11. Re-Use and Reversioning
12. Editorial Integrity and Independence From External Interests
13. Conflicts of Interest
14. External Relationships and Funding
15. Interacting With Our Audiences
16. The Law
17. Accountability
18. Appendix 1: The Ofcom Broadcasting Code
19. Appendix 2: Code of conduct for competitions and votes
20. Appendix 3: Statement of policy on alternative finance
21. Appendix 4: Framework for funding prizes and awards
22. Appendix 5: Guidelines for BBC commercial services on editorial integrity and independence from external interests
23. Appendix 6: Guidelines for BBC global news services on external relationships and funding.

• Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) accessibility Standards:

1. Role Attribute 1.0
2. Web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) 2.0
3. User Agent accessibility guidelines 1.0
4. Authoring tool accessibility guidelines 1.0
5. Web content accessibility guidelines 1.0
6. Understanding WCAG 2.0
7. Techniques for WCAG 2.0
8. Guidance on Applying WCAG 2.0 to Non-Web Information and Communications Technologies (WCAG2ICT)
9. XHTML role attribute module
10. XHTML access module
11. Relationship between mobile web best  practices (MWBP) and web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG)
12. Requirements for WCAG 2.0
13. Inaccessibility of CAPTCHA
14. techniques for user agent accessibility guidelines 1.0
15. techniques for authoring tool accessibility guidelines 1.0
16. core techniques for web content accessibility guidelines 1.0
17. CSS techniques for web content accessibility guidelines 1.0
18. HTML techniques for web content accessibility guidelines 1.0
19. Techniques for web content accessibility guidelines 1.0 

Legal:

Content, interpretation and application: Legal issues are completely different from ethical, ethical is where you follow rules that are right by your own morals, but legal is where you follow rules that apply to the laws which in turn apply to all people.

• Broadcasting Act 1990 (and later Amendments): The broadcasting act is reformation broadcasting on the UK's TV's. The independent broadcasting authority was replaced by the independent television commission and the radio authority which was later replaced with a new commission called Ofcom. The broadcasting act came after the Peacock committee which was a review on the financing for the BBC which as also started by Margret Thatcher (one of the prime ministers).
• The recommendations of the its report were:

1. All TV receiver or dishes should all be built with encryption decoders.
2. BBC 1 and BBC 2 radio's should be privatized.
3. License fee should also be extended to car radio's.
4. Channel 4 should be aloud to sell its own advertising.
5. Censorship should be phased out.
6. 40% of ITV and BBC's output should be be sourced from independent producers.
7. The over night transmission space should be sold.

On the 14th of December 1999 in London, a radio station called XFM was fined £50,000 because it breached the British broadcasting act.
in 1996 a new act was made for new provision on broadcasting in digital form on television and sound programmes.

• Official Secrets Act 1989: it is an act that was made by the British Parliament in 1989 that repeals and replaces 2 sections in the original act which is removing the public's defense in the original act's section. this law was breached by a NATO forces translator who was sending emails with info on the British forces to the military forces in Iran.
• Obscene Publications Act 1959 (And later amendments): The obscene act is when the law goes offensive when material is published and deemed to obscene and repealing the law offence known as libel law. this law gives the police a warrant that allows them to be able to seize any any obscene material. this very act was used when a book was published in 1972 called lady Chatterley's lover due to it containing sexual scenes and later was banned in England and wales after the trial.

• Films Act 1985: This law dissolved the film funding agency in Britain and ended the eady levy system which was established in 1951. this act is a for film finance and defining British films. this act abolished the cinematography film council and national film finance corporation by transferring all of its assets towards the British screen finance limited. the previous acts from 1960 to 1980 were repealed and other provision of finance acts from 1982 and 1984.
• Video Recordings Act 1984: This law does not allow people to sell or hire video recordings without a classification that allows them to do such and it has to be signed by the home office.
• Race Relation Act 1976 (and later amendments): this act covers race, nationality, color, ethnic and national origins in all fields of employment such as provisions of goods, education and service to the public. this law promotes race equality and makes sure that there is no discrimination against people by their race, their culture, their religion or the color of their skin.This law has been violated many times such as when people make racist comments on TV or the radio or anywhere really.
• Human Rights Act 1998: This act came more into force on October 2000. This act imposed many new laws as listed below.

1. The right to life
2. Right to security
3. Right to liberty
4. The right to a fair trial
5. Freedom of religion
6. No form of punishment without Law.
7. Freedom of thought and Belief
8. Right an education
9. Right to peaceful enjoyment of your property

• Licensing Act 2003 (and later amendments): That a secretary must issue and revise a guidance in order to license.
• Privacy law: This law is about the right to protection of a persons privacy and the misuse of information. This law was violated when news of the world hacked the phones of many people including (the deceased) Milly Dowler and victims of the 7/7 bombings in London, in the end by violating this law News of the world was shut down.
• Copyright Law: This law does not allow people to copy idea's that have been placed under copyright or pat and pending, unless they have the creator's permission. such as the many spoof movies that copy film idea's which are listed below. and it is not just films it is any kind of form of media such as books, music or TV series. The only thing that can't be under copyright is a drink.

1. Spoof: Space balls - Original: Star wars 
2. Superhero movie - all Marvel work
3. Power rangers - the Japanese show Super Sentai (super sentai is the show power rangers got the costumes and fight scenes from).
4. Austin powers - James bond
5. Epic movie- a wide range of movies

• Copyright and intellectual Property Law: Creative work is treated as an asset or a form of property and can fall into the area of copyright, trademarks, rights or patents.
• Libel Law: Libel law is the protection of a persons reputation against an unjustified attack or slander, whether it is from the Television, the Internet or the Newspapers. The law states that the only way to build a libel case is when a publisher can prove if anything they put in a statement is true or not.

Legal Constraints In The Creative Media Sector

Law:
Libel law:
Description: I person can be sued if they use the media to damage someone's reputation, if the accusations are untrue. This law was created in order to protect people or organizations from mistaken, untruthful or unwarranted attacks on said people's or organizations reputations.
Examples: Keira knightly was blamed for a girl dying of anorexia due to her having a slimmer figure.

Obscene Publications Act:
Description: This law does not allow content that is to deprave and corrupt its audience with its content.
Examples: This very act was used when a book was published in 1972 called lady Chatterley's lover due to it containing sexual scenes and later was banned in England and wales after the trial.

Official secrets act:
Description: It is a criminal offence to publish or obtain information a active or former member of secruity and intelligence services.
Examples: This law was breached by a NATO forces translator who was sending emails with info on the British forces to the military forces in Iran.

Copyright and Intellectual property act:
Description: This law is used to protect creative endeavors so that they can take the property benefit.
Examples: This when Samsung and apple had numerous lawsuits regarding the designs of their electronics.

Privacy law and Human rights Act:
Descriptions: If a media company has published information on someone and said information should be private or information that had a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Examples: News of the world had gotten various information on max Mosley and exposed him for being part of Nazi themed sex act in which several prostitutes were involved. when the news of the world published these stories and the details with the help of a video recording from one of the girls, Max Mosley took it to court and filed a suit which ended with him receiving £60,000.

Ethical:


Reality shows: Geordie shore: The alcoholic content and unstable behavior provides a bad example for younger viewers which is why it is shown on a later time such as 9 pm, so younger viewers don't watch it.
On the show the actors are not aloud to drink to much for filming and drinking is not encouraged and in the case of hiring people are checked in case of criminal backgrounds, problems with alcohol or unstable behavior.

Drama: In some drama's where they show scenes that might effect people people who are watching , they send out a message at the end if you have been effected by what you have seen in this program please call..." In order for some people to talk about what was on and complain if somethings that were shown were wrong, both by the legal and ethical violations.

Comedy shows: Many show such as South park poke fun at issues such as racism and many other things. It is a comedy show meaning it pushes the boundaries, but that doesn't mean that what they do does not offend some viewers.

Current Affairs Shows: Current affair shows that go undercover require the people who work for them to be protected, they also blur some of the people's faces in order to protect them in the case of danger from some viewers.

Talk shows: Jeremy Kyle: People have to sign an agreement in order to be on the show and have to keep unstable behavior in check, the terms and conditions are usually breached by the people who go on the show mainly with their in ability to cope with the end results.