Unit 1 FACT SHEET QUINN CAIE
Legal and Ethical 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: The purpose of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act is to give power to creators of
original works. It controls how it will be used by other people or companies, if it can be used by them
at all. However, copyright can run out and will become free to use after a set amount of years. This is
all to make sure that original creations cannot be stolen by other people. This law covers different
works like literacy, films, music, drama work like plays, artwork, films, and music.
In order to avoid breaking this law, magazine producers must avoid using copyrighted material or get
the proper permission from the owner or owners. The works that might be related to magazines are
Typography, Artistic and literary works.
This is relevant to Empire magazine because they will use photographs and text in their articles from
other sources that might be copyrighted by another person or company. To avoid breaking the law,
Empire magazine would have to write their own text, take their own photographs of people or
locations, or ask for permission to use copyrighted ones. Empire magazine is also sometimes
provided with images for use in their articles by film companies. These provided images might be
unique for each magazine or original for each one.
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 purpose of the 2010 Equality Act is to ensure that different types of people do not
face offence or discrimination based on their features and characteristics. Some of the protected
characteristics are: age, marriage status, disabilities, race, religion or lack of religion and sexual
orientation.This law is in place to ensure that everyone in society is treated the same way and
afforded the same opportunities at work regardless of who they are. In order to not discriminate
against the listed people a magazine must avoid publishing images or text that might risk
discriminating or offending anyone.
This relates to Empire magazine because their articles will mention films, characters and
actors/actresses that might be affiliated with the list of protected people above. Empire magazine
would have to ensure that articles and images don't discriminate against anyone. They can do this by
not hiring people who might be discriminatory through background checks, checking their texts,
images and language used in the articles.
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
Type of protection Examples of intellectual property Time to allow for application
Trade marks Product names, logos, jingles 4 months
Appearance of a product including, shape,
Registered designs 1 month
packaging, patterns, colours, decoration
Inventions and products, eg machines and
Patents Around 5 years
machine parts, tools, medicines
Application: Intellectual property (IP) is the status given to original ideas and creations. Trademarks,
for example, can fall under an IP. Intellectual Property is traditionally something that isn't physical
like the name for something or a patent. The purpose of an IP is to give protection to original and
new creations, but an application for an IP can only be put through if the creation was recent. To
avoid breaking this law a magazine or magazine producer must check that all their content is
original, like articles and house styles, before publication.
This law applies to Empire magazine because literary works, articles and photographs fall under IPs
and all of those will appear in Empire magazine issues. Empire magazine will have to check that all
their content is original. This includes the house style, any images used in the articles and logo of the
magazine.
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 an 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: The Obscene Publications Act is a law that prevents the publication of material that is
widely considered to be disgusting or obscene by the public. This can include text and images that
contain inappropriate content for the target audience. In order to not break this law producers or
magazines should avoid producing material that might have a chance of being viewed as obscene.
This applies to Empire magazine because their images and text could discuss more mature media
and therefore contain references to that media which might include explicit/obscene content. To
avoid adding obscene content to their articles Empire magazine would have to go over their work
with multiple people like writers and editors to ensure that the content isn't explicit/obscene. If an
article has to mention or talk about something explicit, then it will be censored.
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: The Trespass law is in place to stop people from entering into private spaces and
property. This could be because the area is dangerous or because there is something that must be
kept confidential. In the case of magazines this might be a person's property. In order for a producer
to not break this law they must not enter private grounds or ask for written permission and
document it.
The trespass law is relevant to Empire magazine because they may want or need to interview an
actor/actress or other person involved in filmmaking. These hypothetical interviews may happen on
a person's private property or on a confidential set of a film production. In order to gain access to
these locations Empire magazine would have to gain written permission from the people who own
the land before entering.
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.
The effect this has on radio:
This means that they can't tell the listeners people’s full names or any private details they don't
want revealed. For example if a viewer calls in but they don't want their name to be revealed then
they can't say it.
The effect this has on television:
This is also basically the same as radio, they can't use people’s full names without their consent. This
also means that if they take footage of someone they need to get that person’s permission before
they air it on television.
Anyone who believes their right has been broken can make a civil claim in the courts against those
they believe have invaded their privacy.
When applying the legal principles the court will balance the claimant's right to privacy against the
right to freedom of expression.
If the claimant is proved to be correct this could result in an injunction banning publication of
information; damages; and return or destruction of the material gained from the intrusion.
Application: Privacy laws protect a person's private life. This can include their name, address, family
information and phone numbers. If a magazine or magazine producer wants to publish these
examples in their material they must ask for permission. If permission is not gained then they cannot
release that information or they can get into legal trouble.
The privacy law is relevant to Empire magazine because they interview people in the film industry
and might also write about them and their history in detail. This means that Empire magazine needs
to ask permission from the people they write about and interview to know if they can publish certain
information in their articles. There is also information about people that they would not publish or
write about anyway, like phone numbers.
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: The purpose of the 2013 Defamation Act is to prevent people or creations from
purposefully harming the reputation of a person through publication of false information. In relation
to magazines this would be Libel as magazines are written text. In order for a magazine or magazine
producer to not break this law they must not publish false information and check that their
information is factually correct.
This is relevant to Empire magazine because they write about famous people often and releasing
untruthful information from an official source like their magazine might do serious damage to an
actor, actress or director. Empire magazine would avoid this by fact checking their information
multiple times with different people to ensure that none of the information is damaging to famous
and non-famous people.
Ethical Constraints
Ethical issues are not legal issues but they do have links to some laws. They are what society views as
acceptable and morally right or morally wrong.
The consequences of not following the laws through could be:
● Offending the audience.
● Complaints from customers directly to the company.
● Boycotting.
● Complaints by customers to a regulatory body like the IPSO or ASA.
● A negative judgement of the magazine by the regulatory body
● The magazine could lose its audience and therefore its income.
● The magazine will develop a bad reputation among the public.
Protecting the under 18s
Protecting under 18s is an ethical issue with regards to people who are still considered children
under UK law. This is an ethical issue because the general public has an opinion that children are to
be protected from obscene media or anything considered inappropriate for their age group. This
includes: obscene language, explicit images, violence or graphic violence, sexual content, nudity and
anything that is generally considered inappropriate for children.
This also includes protecting under 18s in interviews, filmmaking, photography, their property and
privacy to ensure that nothing inappropriate happens to the under 18.
In order to not cross this ethical line a magazine would have to ensure that none of their images or
text contain obscene content or anything inappropriate for the under 18s age group like nudity or
violence.
This is relevant to Empire magazine because they are provided images from films. These images
might not be appropriate so they could ask for different ones that are less obscene or not include
images at all. Empire magazine might also have quotes or interviews that might contain explicit
language so they would need to be censored.
Representation
Every single media product is a representation of a reality, they are not real people, places or events,
they are constructions of a person, place or thing. This might be an ethical issue because a place,
person or group of people might be unfairly grouped together in an offensive or negative way.
Stereotypes fall under representation and are when a group of people are reduced to their defining
features. This could offend a person or the group being stereotyped. In order to avoid this a
magazine would need to check their images and text to ensure that they avoid negative stereotypes.
This ethical issue will apply to Empire magazine through their texts and images which may contain
stereotypes by chance or accident. Sometimes, Empire magazine articles might talk about
stereotypes included in a film or other media which was included in the product for comedy or to
bring awareness.
Production methods
Production methods are the different types of ways that a magazine could obtain their content. This
is an ethical issue because the methods used may be unethical. Examples include hidden
microphones to record audio, hidden cameras or interviewing vulnerable people. This is an issue
because it invades the victims privacy and their consent.
This impacts magazine production because the producer needs to find legal ways of obtaining
desired information like gaining consent to record an interview. This applies to Empire magazine
because they perform interviews with people related to filmmaking. Empire magazine would need to
avoid taking part in the ethically wrong methods of obtaining information listed above. This means
they will need to ask and get written permission from a person being interviewed or that person's
manager to publish the information.
Content
This is an ethical issue because media producers need to ensure that their products do not contain
or promote negative ideas or media. Producers need to ensure that all their content is safe, accurate
and inoffensive before publication.
This affects production because producers and writers need to take extra care when making their
articles or images to ensure that nothing in them spreads harmful ideas.
This relates to Empire magazine because their magazines contain text and images that might relate
to mature films or films with mature content and discussions. Empire magazine would need to
ensure that their articles do not contain corrupting, negative or harmful ideas like racism,
homophobia and more.
