Unit 1 FACT SHEET Nicole Forber

Legal and Ethical Issues

Legal Issues

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

The law gives the creators of literary, dramatic, musical, artistic works, sound
recordings, broadcasts, films and typographical arrangement of published editions,
rights to control the ways in which their material may be used.

The rights cover: broadcast and public performance, copying, adapting, issuing,
renting and lending copies to the public.

This is a CIVIL law not a CRIMINAL law.

This means it is not a criminal offence to break the law, which could result in a fine or
jail sentence.

Instead, the person who owns the copyright has to sue the person they believe has
broken the law. The case is then heard in a civil court and if the person is found
guilty of breaking copyright law then they will have to pay damages to the owner of
the copyright. The amount of damages is set by the court.

Types of work protected

Literary  
Song lyrics, manuscripts, manuals, computer programs, commercial documents,
leaflets, newsletters and articles etc.
Dramatic  
Plays, dance etc.
Musical  
Recordings and score.
Artistic  
Photography, painting, sculptures, architecture, technical drawings/diagrams, maps,
logos.
Typographical arrangement of published editions
Magazines, periodicals, etc.
Sound recording
May be recordings of other copyright works, e.g. musical and literary.
Film  
Video footage, films, broadcasts and cable programmes.
The Copyright (Computer Programs) Regulations 1992 extended the rules covering
literary works to include computer programs.
Duration of copyright

For literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works: 70 years from the end of the
calendar year in which the last remaining author of the work dies.
If the author is unknown, copyright will last for 70 years from end of the calendar
year in which the work was created, although if it is made available to the public
during that time, by publication, authorised performance, broadcast, exhibition etc,
then the duration will be 70 years from the end of the year that the work was first
made available.
Sound Recordings: 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work
was created or, if the work is released within that time, 70 years from the end of the
calendar year in which the work was first released.
Films: 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the last principal director,
author or composer dies.
If the work is of unknown authorship: 70 years from end of the calendar year of
creation, or if made available to the public in that time, 70 years from the end of the
year the film was first made available.
Typographical arrangement of published editions: 25 years from the end of the
calendar year in which the work was first published.
Broadcasts and cable programmes: 50 years from the end of the calendar year in
which the broadcast was made.

APPLICATION:
Copyright laws were created to protect people from having their work used and
stolen by others. This law covers music, books, recordings, films etc. Copyright laws
are in order to make sure that the content is produced by the creator themselves. If
the same material was to be used or needed, you would have to have a documented
permission of the owner of the material needed for your article, music, film etc. If you
did not have the documented permission of the owner of the material, the possible
consequence of this is that you could be sued for copyright infringement as it is not
your own work.They need to acquire legal permission from the owners of the
material for the copyright law.

This applies to magazine production in general as if content is created by someone

else, others cannot steal or use this material without the permission of the copyright
owner. Magazine producers must check all work that they write as they do not want
to break the copyright laws. If this law is broken depending on the severity of the
copyright laws that are broken and how many times you carry to do this, it could lead
to a fine and in certain cases imprisonment. If a magazine were to use copyrighted
material and did not have permission of the owner of the material, then this could
also ruin the reputation of the magazine as it would be known to society that the
magazines content could potentially also have been copied from someone else's
work. Magazine producers must ask for permission every time that they want to use
someone's work.

Take A Break would need permission for some of their content such as photographs
and written work as some of it is not their own. Therefore in order for Take A Break to
add them in their magazine they would need documented permission of the creator
of the material for them to be included and added into the magazine. Without this
document permission, it could not be included in the magazine as they would be
copyrighting someone else's work therefore breaking the copyright law. This is
specific to Take A Break as they use photographs and sometimes stories that are
written by other people therefore they would need to be careful of the copyright laws.

Equality Act 2010

This law legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider
society.
It is against the law to discriminate against anyone because of:
⮚ Age
⮚ Being or becoming a transsexual person
⮚ Being married or in a civil partnership
⮚ Being pregnant or on maternity leave
⮚ Disability
⮚ Race including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin
⮚ Religion/belief or lack of religion/belief
⮚ Sex
⮚ Sexual orientation

This is a CRIMINAL law.

Therefore anyone who is considered to be breaking the law could be arrested. It
would result in a criminal trial which if found guilty could result in a fine or jail
sentence.

APPLICATION:
The Equality Act 2010 law was created to protect others from being discriminated
against in the workplace and in wider society. This means that creators have to
thoroughly read through work and be cautious of what they write and publish pictures
of as they could possibly break this law. This law is put in place to protect everyone
of their ages, being or becoming a transsexual person, being married or in a civil
relationship, being pregnant or on maternity leave, disability, race, religion, sex and
sexual orientation. This is to protect others and the creators themselves as some
content could possibly offend someone in one way or another.

In terms of magazine production, to make sure this law is not broken, multiple people
would be proof reading the work to make sure it is appropriate for all audiences and
people without offending others. This protects people from all discrimination, for
example, sexual orientation, gender, race, religion etc. For magazine producers this
means that they must avoid or remove any content that could be deemed
discriminatory, they would do this by having multiple people check the work before
publishing to ensure that they don’t break this law. Therefore magazine producers
will have to put caution into what they put in the content in the images and the text.

The producers of Take a Break prevent from breaking this law by having various
people check over the articles and images multiple times to make sure that they
don't include any discriminatory content. For example, Take A Break would be
representative of all backgrounds and ethnicities in their content in the articles.
Examples of this would be: ages, race, sexuality, social economic groups and people
with disabilities. Therefore this would appeal to a diverse target audience.

Intellectual property
 What intellectual property is
Having the right type of intellectual property protection helps you to stop people
stealing or copying:
⮚ the names of your products or brands
⮚ your inventions
⮚ the design or look of your products
⮚ things you write, make or produce

Copyright, patents, designs and trademarks are all types of intellectual property
protection. You get some types of protection automatically, others you have to apply
for.

You own intellectual property if you:

⮚ created it (and it meets the requirements for copyright, a patent or a design
⮚ bought intellectual property rights from the creator or a previous owner
⮚ have a brand that could be a trade mark e.g. a well known product name

If you believe anyone has stolen or copied your property you would sue them in civil
court.

Types of protection
The type of protection you can get depends on what you’ve created. You get some
types of protection automatically, others you have to apply for.

Automatic protection

Protection you have to apply for

Examples of intellectual
Type of protection Time to allow for application
property
Trade marks Product names, logos, jingles 4 months
Appearance of a product including,
Registered designs shape, packaging, patterns, 1 month
colours, decoration
Inventions and products, eg
Patents machines and machine parts, Around 5 years
tools, medicines

APPLICATION:
The intellectual law protects people from having their work stolen or having materials
copied like: names of the brands or products, design, the things you write, make or
produce. You can own an intellectual property if you created the work, bought the
intellectual property rights from the creator of the product or material and if you have
a brand that could possibly be a trademark.
This would apply to magazine production in general as they must be cautious of the
work that is used as they do not want to break this law. If they did break this law it
could end in a lawsuit against the magazine company and owners.

For Take A Break, they avoid breaking the intellectual property laws by creating their
own borders, layouts, magazine name and design. If Take A Break wants to use
logos, designs and house style of magazines or be influenced by other people then
credit is given to the creators of the materials and also they have to write proof from
the creator of the product/ materials that the Take A Break magazine company is
allowed to use their work in the magazine content.

Obscene Publications Act 1959

For the purposes of this Act an article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect or
(where the article comprises two or more distinct items) the effect of any one of its
items is, if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are
likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter
contained or embodied in it.

In this Act ‘article’ means any description of article containing or embodying matter to
be read or looked at or both, any sound record and any film or other record of a
picture or pictures.

This is a criminal law.

APPLICATION:
This law prevents publishers from releasing anything considered indecent and
offensive (obscene). These would be content like nudity, indecency and violence.
Magazine publishers would check to make sure they don't include any text or images
that could be considered obscene, they would do this by having multiple different
people check over the work multiple times.

To prevent this law from being broken, Take A Break magazine would not include
anything indecent or offensive in the content that is created in the magazine. Also
they would reassure the editors that there is no nudity, indecency or violence
involved in the images or text. For example, censoring an image that has nudity in it.

Trespass
This is a civil law.
Trespass to land consists of any unjustifiable intrusion by a person upon the land in
possession of another.
Civil trespass is actionable in the courts.

APPLICATION:
This law prevents people from entering premises that belong to other people if they
don't have permission to and if this law were to be broken then it would result in a
fine if found accountable.
This could possibly apply to magazine production in general as if they were to take
pictures on someone else's land or take credit for the land as their own, this would
result in a fine. This would result in a fine as they have not been given permission to
use their land. Even if the magazine production has permission to the land they are
still to give credit for the owners land in the articles and content.

To avoid Take A Break from breaking this law, if they were to take pictures or explore
someone else's land, they would need to get written permission from the owners of
the premises to use this location for their photographs or just use the public property

Privacy
The introduction of the Human Rights Act 1998 incorporated into English law the
European Convention on Human Rights.

Article 8.1 of the ECHR provides an explicit right to respect for a private life:
Article 8 protects your right to respect for your private life, your family life, your home
and your correspondence (letters, telephone calls and emails, for example).
 
Privacy Law is a law which deals with the use of people’s personal information and
making sure they aren't intruded upon. These laws make sure people can't have
their information wrongly used without permission.

APPLICATION:
This law protects people from having their personal information used without their
permission. The invasion of someone's private information is a criminal law.

This is important to the magazine production in general as they have to keep

someone's private information to themselves without sharing. If an invasion of
someone's privacy is shared without the person knowing this is against the law.
Magazines in general are to ask permission before posting anything about a person
as they may want to keep certain information private. If this information is not private,
this could be potentially dangerous to the person. For example they need to avoid
adding peoples full names to articles, their addresses, their contact information like
emails, phone numbers also they need to avoid adding their workplaces. This is for
the safety of the person as they will not want their information out in public for society
to see.

Take A Break follows this law by only adding the information about people which
could be available to the public or if extra information is needed then they would
need to get permission of the person to show that they are okay with certain
information being read by others. Take A Break would censor information of the
person involved in the article, or images as this is their private information and
should not be revealed. For example they need to avoid adding peoples full names
to articles, their addresses, their contact information like emails, phone numbers also
they need to avoid adding their workplaces.

Defamation Act 2013

This Act reformed defamation law on issues of the right to freedom of expression
and the protection of reputation. It also comprised a response to perceptions that the
law as it stood was giving rise to libel tourism and other inappropriate claims.

The Act changed existing criteria for a successful claim, by requiring claimants to
show actual or probable serious harm (which, in the case of for-profit bodies, is
restricted to serious financial loss), before suing for defamation in England or Wales.

It also enhanced existing defences, by introducing a defence for website operators

hosting user-generated content (provided they comply with a procedure to enable
the complainant to resolve disputes directly with the author of the material concerned
or otherwise remove it), and introducing new statutory defences of truth, honest
opinion, and "publication on a matter of public interest“.

LIBEL
A written, published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation.

SLANDER
Making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation.

Defamation is a civil law and so you would need to sue someone who you believe
has damaged your reputation.

APPLICATION:
This law helps to protect any person from having their reputation kept in place, as
this is a civil law if broken it could lead to a lawsuit against the company which
destroyed it. Libel is a written and published fake statement that has the possibility of
damaging a person's reputation. Slander is a false spoken statement which can also
be damaging to the reputation of the person. Both of these could be damaging to the
magazine production as once bad press is spoken about the magazine, this false
information would spread therefore people would stop reading the magazine due to
the reputation of Take A Break.

Libel applies to magazine production in general because if a magazine writes

anything in their content about a certain object, or person then this could potentially
destroy someones or something's reputation. By destroying and ruining the
reputation this means that it would give bad reviews and objectives to the object or
person. If a magazine did decide to do this then they would break both laws: libel
and slander. If these laws were broken this would result in a lawsuit against the
company which destroyed it.

In order to not break this law, Take A Break would make sure to read the articles
over so there isn't any information disclosing any information that could cause
potential harm to somebody's reputation with false information. Take A Break would
need to be considerate in the content that they publish as certain information could
destroy someone's reputation and therefore could potentially ruin a part of
someone's life. Take A Break would have to be especially careful in this because the
magazine revolves around different lifestyles and life stories of different people. For
example if Take A Break magazine were to ruin someone in their articles about in
their beliefs or certain characteristics this could hurt a person both physically and
mentally.

Ethical Constraints

Ethical constraints refers to what is known to be morally right or wrong. They are not
legal issues and are based on judgement and societal standards. If ethical lines are
to be crossed it could create offence, harm and controversy problems. In media
production there are different outcomes as a result of these actions. The outcomes
of this language and behaviour if used in the product are that it can cause a bad
reputation of the product. If there is therefore a bad reputation of the media product it
will cause readers to stop buying the product and reading it, therefore resulting in
losing the audience. The audience of the product if they find it necessary they will
complain to the regulatory body, they can issue a report to one of the multiple
regulatory bodies such as advertisements
(ASA) and the print media (IPSO).

Protecting under 18s

The ethical issue for protecting under eighteen is that the content and work done by
someone needs to be censored and protected if the text is inappropriate or not
suitable in any shape or form. This is an issue as people work hard to protect under
eighteen from viewing any content that should not be seen by them such as: bad
language, drug references, sex references or offensive language. This should be
hidden from all ages under eighteen. This could be considered as an ethical issue as
if under eighteen view this content, this would make sure they do not commit certain
acts under 18 and also protects them from seeing the experiences others could go
through. This protects them so they don't try to be an expert whilst still a child. It also
protects them in the content meaning that it protects them from reading content
potentially about themselves with their knowledge.

In magazines it is important and vital to use appropriate content in all media products
as there is the possibility of the audience being under 18s, it is also important as it is
protecting them in terms of content written by the magazine too. By using
appropriate content the producers and editors would need to use suitable images
and also fitting text in the articles. It is also important as the media products are
protecting under 18s, if there was any graphic information or disturbing information
for under 18s that they sensor certain parts of the content. For the content of under
18s it would need to be appropriate and fair not an intrusion. This means that the
magazine products would need to either censor out certain parts of the article or cut
it out completely so they don't overstep.Magazine editors must keep information
strictly confidential when handling under 18s, this is because it could be potentially
harmful to the person.

In Take A Break magazine, they tend to right about life stories of other people
involved in the content of the magazines, to protect under eighteens for ethical
issues, this information may be censored out and hidden from viewers as there is a
range of different possibilities what could be written out in the life stories. If an under
18s story or information was written about in the Take A Break magazine it would
have to be protected as they are underage and to keep the article fair instead of an
intrusion of the person. Take A Break needs to be cautious when editing their
magazine and what they write. This is because the magazine would also need to
protect under 18s in the content.

Representation
Representation refers to the way in which people, places and events are portrayed in
a media product. In media products nothing is considered to be real as it is a
representation of reality and is constructed in a way of a sense of reality to the
audience. Representation of people, places and events are created to make it look a
specific way to the audience. This is done through things like camera shots, editing,
sounding, mise en scene. Stereotypes are specific representations that have been
reduced to a few defying characteristics often created and known to be negative.
Stereotypes are reinforced by the media. Stereotypes could be an ethical issue
because it could cause harm and offence to a group of specific people. There is a
negative representation against most stereotypes and this can be shown in the
media products content. Therefore magazine producers need to avoid adding
negative stereotypes into their work and to review their content carefully before
publishing the article.

Take A Break is careful with their representation as they do not want to gain a bad
reputation of harming or offending someone due to a stereotype. Take A Break
avoids using stereotypes as they aren't necessarily true and could ruin someone's
reputation as well as their own if they add it to their magazine. Take A Break uses
representation as part of their content is based on the truth however readers and the
audiences believe that representation of the magazine articles are based on the
entire truth. Magazines have the power to talk about anything which can be included
in their magazine, Take A Break would need to be careful not to put in stereotypes as
this could potentially cause problems for the both company and magazine. If
stereotypes are included in the magazine this could create a negative
representation of the magazine as most stereotypes are negatively talked and
written about. Take A Break would need to be careful with their content as there is a
high possibility this would happen as Take A Break as it discusses people's life
stories.

Production Methods
The ethical issue for production methods overall is to work on how the material is
covered and created in order to get the needed information for the media product
that they are working on. An example of an unethical production method can be like
hidden microphones in rooms without anyone's knowledge, this would be classed as
an ethical issue. The approach of other people needs to be considered. Journalists
must not exploit others especially those who are mentally and physically vulnerable
to get the information that is necessarily needed for the media product.

This means that magazine producers must not use unethical production methods like
hidden cameras and microphones, as this would be deceptive and unethical. They
must make sure they follow ethical production methods and do not deceive people in
the process.
This means Take a Break must be honest and direct in their production methods and
not use unethical approaches that are deceptive like hidden microphones. However,
Take a Break is also unique in the sense that a lot of the stories are written by
contributing readers, as real life stories. So it’s not often the case that unethical
methods would be used.

Content
The ethical issue for the content applies to the subject matter and details of a
particular product. So all the ethical issues including production methods,
representation, privacy must be applied to the content.

Magazine producers must ensure that all the content in the magazine is fully
appropriate for all audiences and meet the ethical standards. They must make sure
that before publishing the article they need to go through their work and make sure
that it is appropriate for under 18s because if they have content which is unsuitable
this breaks the representation law as they aren't treating everyone equally and fairly
throughout the magazine and only considering others.The content is to be double
checked and proof read before anything is published to make sure that the content is
appropriate for all ages of the audience and to also make sure there is no harmful or
offensive language or behaviour in the text. This is because magazines for example
should not be seen to support negative ideas or glamourise negative behaviours. If a
magazine is seen to be doing this, this would be known as an ethical issue.

Take A Break carefully spectates their work so they don't have to deal with an ethical
issue.They also do this so their content does not offend someone. Take A Break
producers need to make sure and carefully examine the content that they create as
they write about stories and different new topics, this could potentially ruin
someone's representation as Take A Break goes into detail in the stories. They need
to be examined to make sure that they are not offensive to anyone who could
possibly be reading them.