Legal and Ethical Constraints in the Media Industry

In the media industry, producers have to take into consideration the legal and ethical constraints that could affect them.

Legal Constraints

Legal Constraints are the laws that controls the creative media sectors.

• Broadcasting Act 1990
• Official Secrets 1989
• Obscene Publications Act 1959
• Race Relations Act 1976
• Human Rights Act 1998
• Privacy Law
• Copyrights and Intellectual Property Law
• Libel Law

 

Libel Law

Libel Law is just the same as slander, except that slander is spoken and libel is written.These are known as Defamation. Defamation is a false accusation of an offense or a misinterpretation of some's words or actions.
For example; say if someone has said something about you over the radio, which was not true, then that is Slander. But if someone had written a news article about it, then that would be Libel.
A big example of Libel law is the Hillsborough Disaster. Back in 1989 at a FA semi-cup final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest when 96 people died and 766 others were injured. The original story that was that Liverpool fans had been drinking all day, and rushed into the stadium  causing it to be overcrowded, and leading to the stands collapsing. When in truth, which was revealed earlier this year, was that what the newspaper had written was all wrong. And it turned out that it was the police would were not taking notice on the amount of people entering the stadium to watch the football. Because of the original story, almost everyone in Liverpool stopped reading the sun newspaper, and they eventually stopped selling it there. After the truth came out, it was the main story on the front of the paper. The story revealed the real truth, and made a sincere apology to the Liverpool supporters who attended that game back in 1989.

Obscene Publications Act

The Obscene Publications act came out around 1857. This was made so that when certain material becomes too obscene, it then becomes a statutory offence which then gives the courts permission to remove and/or destroy the footage. The law was introduced by a man called Lord Campbell, the Lord Chief of Justice. The first ever offense of the obscene publications act, was by a man called William Dugdale. He was sentenced to long tern of impressionism after her books were viewed as being Pornographic and too obscene to be read.
Some movies have been banned by the Obscene Publications Act.  One of those movie is The Human Centipede 2. After the first movie creative such a stir, they decided to bring out another. However although the people who found it hard to stomach the first film, many of those chose not to watch the second. The Human Centipede 2 was proved to be too obscene and is banned from public views in the UK. The British Board of Film Classification commented sat the film was sexually violent and potentially too obscene.

Copyright Law

The Copyrights and Intellectual Property Law gives the creators of dramatic, musical and artistic works the right to control the ways in which their material may be used. Copyright was first used in the 1800's when Charles II was concerned with the mass printing of none categorized and recorded books. Copyright is a legal law which entitles the original creator or owner rights to the work that they have created. It was initially made to control the printing of books and magazines, to give the creators rights to control them. For example, you can not use their work without permission or given credit to the person who created it.
Copyright can be claimed on a long list of things, some of those are; books brochures and newspapers; theatrical works; oral presentations; choreography; music (with or without lyrics); drawings, painting, buildings and sculptures; designs; photography work; and computer programs.
An example of when the Copyright law was used was mid August 2012, when Apple sued Samsung $1.05 billion (£665 million) for copying some of the software features, including 'bounce-back scrolling', tap to zoom and pinching to enlarge images, as well as the rounded rectangular design from the iPhone.

Humans Rights Act

-The Human Rights Act 1998 is a law which was brought into full force in October of 2000. It gives further effect in the UK to the fundamental rights and freedom in the European Convention on Human Rights. This law does three simple things; it makes it unlawful for a public authority, like a government department, local authority or the police to breach the Convention rights, unless an Act of Parliament meant that it couldn't have acted any differently. It means that human rights cases can be dealt with in a UK court or tribunal. Until this act, anyone who felt that their rights under the convention had been breached, they had to go to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Also it says that all UK legislation much be given a meaning that firs with the Convention rights, if that's possible. If a court says that is not possible it will be up to Parliament to decide of what the happened next.
The Human Rights definitely have to be taken into consideration in the media industry. A big thing when human rights were involved in the media, was when the big up-rawh happened with News of the World and the phone hacking scandals. Article 8 of the Human Rights Act states "Right to respect for private and family life",  and when the phone hacking was happening, the News of the World was going into peoples private life, which also involved their families. What News of the World did was insistently and act against that.

 

Privacy Law

-Privacy in UK law is always  a developing area of English Law, that is considered in what situations an individual has a legal right to information privacy, this is to say that the protection of personal and/or private information from misuse or any unauthorised disclosure. Again an example of the privacy in the media, is the phone hacking case, which was caused by News of the World hacking into peoples phones, listening and deleting voice mails to their victim who they are taking their privacy from. One of the cases was News of the World hacked Milly Dowler, and 13 year old girl who went missing. Family members try to get in contact with her by leaving voice mails but once they had filled the mail box, News of the world was then going in and deleted some to make room for more, so that they could find out what was happening. This then give the family false hope that there little girl was alive and listening to their messages. Sadly Milly was abducted and her body was found several months later.

Broadcasting Act 1990

The broadcasting act of 1990 was a reformation of TV licensing which led to the reinstatement of two regulatory bodies. The act is seen as a key factor of Thatcherism as the legislation incorporated market ideology into British broadcasting. This has effected  television production permanently. The two reinstated regulatory bodies are The Independent Television Committee and Radio Authority. Some of the key changes because of the broadcasting act are; that this act required all ITV franchises are to be put up for sale and to be awarded partly and financial grounds. Also Independent Television Commission set up to regulate all TV services in the UK, with the exception of the BBC and eventually Channel 4. The broadcasting act was also the reason why the sponsorship of programmes was introduces. The Radio Authority imposed a fine of £50,000 to XFM in 1999 for breaching the broadcasting act. This was the maximum financial penalty The Radio Authority could sanction. This was due to two separate breakfast broadcasts. These broadcast shows featured highly offensive language, bestiality, pornography and other ill-judged sexual references. Hallam FM were also given the same fine of £50,000 for call-ins inciting violence and references to child abuse also in 1999. 

Official Secrets 1989

Official secrets legislation protects national security. It has not been used in recent years to prosecute 

journalists, but has been used to jail civil servants and others who have given journalists supplied 

sensitive information. Journalists could be jailed under this legislation. Also, successive governments 

have used it to gain injunctions to stop leaked material being published. Police could search the 

home, newsroom and office, and seize research records seized of any journalists thought to have 

breached this law and make sustained attempts to discover a confidential source’s identity. There is 

no ‘public interest’ defence for anyone facing prosecution. The Official Secrets Acts of 1911 and 1989 protect national security and can be used to enforce the duty of confidentiality owed to the State by members of the UK’s security and intelligence services, other Crown servants such as civil servants, members of the armed forces and police and, civilians working for them, and employees of companies contracted in military or other sensitive work. Part of the legislation was designed to punish spies working for foreign powers who betray or incite the betrayal of defence, intelligence, and diplomatic secrets, or make vital facilities vulnerable to sabotage. 

In 1998 Ministry of Defence police raided the home of Tony Geraghty, the former Sunday Times defence correspondent, after publication of his book The Irish War, which disclosed extensive use of computerised surveillance by intelligence agencies in Northern Ireland. He was arrested and charged with an offence under the Official Secrets Act 1989. It was not until a year later that the charge against him was dropped.

Race Relations Act 1976

The Race Relations Act 1976 was established by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to prevent discrimination on the grounds of race.Items that are covered include discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, nationality, ethnic and national origin in the fields of employment, the provision of goods and services, education and public functions. The Act also established the Commission for Racial Equality with a view to review the legislation, which was put in place to make sure the Act rules were followed. The Act incorporates the earlier Race Relations Act 1965 and Race Relations Act 1968 and was later amended by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, notably including a statutory duty on public bodies to promote race equality, and to demonstrate that procedures to prevent race discrimination are effective.