Legal and Ethical Constraints in the Media Sector

Legal and Ethical Constraints


Obscene Publications Act

The obscene publications act is a law that has the right to ban and get rid of anything which could be overly offencive or cause grief. things involved in this act could be anything from a book published by William Dugdale which included pornographic features and sexual content, to the film 'The Human Centipede 2' which included very graphic violence.  The Texas chainsaw massacre films have been banned in 6 countries due to high violence and gore content but on two occasions the ban was later lifted.










Official Secrets

The official secrets act is making sure you do not give away any information that people do not want you to give, for example giving an enemy information about what someone is planning privately, and is also classed as an arrestable offence.


Copyright Act

Copyright was first used in the 1800’s, Charles II of England, was concerned over the mass printing of none categorised or recorded books It is a law that Entitles the person who came up with something to be able to claim money off people who want to use it or could sue them if they are using that idea and claiming it as their own.
^{Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of the original piece of work there own exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time only. Generally it is the 'right to copy' but also gives the holder the right to be credited for the the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms,who may perform the work and who may financially benefit from it.}  

Copyright can be claimed on:

Books

Brochures 

Newspapers

Theatrical works
Oral presentations
Choreographic works
Music
Drawings
Paintings
Buildings
Sculptures
Designs
Photographic works
Computer programs

Broadcasting Act

The Broadcasting Act of 1990 is a law of the British Parliament, The aim of this act is to inform the entire structure of British broadcasting. An effect of this act was that in the letter of the law the television or radio companies rather than the regulator became the broadcasters as has been the case in the early 1955 - 1964 era of the independent television authority when it had fewer regulatory powers than it would later assume.

Human Rights Act 1998

The Convention was drafted by the Council of Europe after World War II. Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe was the Chair of the Committee on Legal and Administrative Questions of the Council's Consultative Assembly from 1949 to 1952, and oversaw the drafting of the European Convention on Human Rights. It was designed to incorporate a traditional civil liberties approach to securing "effective political democracy", from the strong traditions of freedom and liberty in the United Kingdom. As a founding member of the Council of Europe, the UK acceded to the European Convention on Human Rights in March 1951. However it was not until Harold Wilson's government in the 1960s that British citizens were able to bring claims in the European Court of Human Rights. Over the 1980s, it was widely perceived that the executive misused its power and that, with movements like Charter 88 (which invoked the 300th anniversary of the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and the Bill of Rights 1689) a British Bill of Rights was needed to secure a human rights culture at home.

Race Relations Act 1976

An Act to make fresh provision with respect to discrimination on racial grounds and relations between people of different racial groups; and to make in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 amendments for bringing provisions in that Act relating to its administration and enforcement into conformity with the corresponding provisions in this Act.

Privacy Law

Privacy in English law is a rapidly developing area of English law that considers in what situations an individual has a legal right to informational privacy, that is to say the protection of personal (or private) information from misuse or unauthorised disclosure. Privacy law is distinct from those laws such as trespass or assault that are designed to protect physical privacy

Some examples include:

• Health privacy laws
• Financial privacy laws
• Online privacy laws
• Communication privacy laws
• Information privacy laws
• Privacy in one's home

Libel Law

Present law:
 English law allows actions for libel to be brought in the High Court for any published statements which are alleged to defame a named or identifiable individual  in a manner which causes them loss in their trade or profession, or causes a reasonable person to think worse of him, her or them.

Defamation is talking or writing something about someone that is untrue and could possibly harm someones reputation. There is not too much difference between the two different types of defamation, Sland


Ethical

Ethical issues when making films are less serious than legal issues when making a film,
er is one type which is spoken for example over radio or on television and the other being libel which is writen this could be anything from in a diary to in a news paper.