William Hoggarth - Fact Sheet - Unit 1

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 law protects people from having their work used without permission. The
types of work the copyright law protects are: Literary, Dramatic, Musical, Artistic,
Sound recording, Film and Typographical arrangement of published editions.

This means that if magazine producers need to ensure all their content, images and
text, is original or if they need to use work that is protected by this law they would
need to gain written permission to use the work without infringement.

With PCGAMER, they use images from within a game and in the context of
magazine articles these images would typically fall under fair use and would
therefore mean the producers would not require permission from the creators of the
game being pictured. Although the images used in the magazine are often supplied
by the developers or publishers of the game alongside permission to use the images.

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 2010 Equality Act was put in place to protect people from being discriminated
against, for example it protects people from being discriminated against because of
their sex, sexual orientation, religion, age and a few more. This is a criminal law
meaning that if this law was broken it could result in a fine or jail sentence.

For magazine producers this means that they must avoid or remove any images and
text 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.

The producers of PCGAMER avoid 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. although video games also come under this law so in the
case of using images from games they most likely wouldn’t include any
discriminatory content.

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 trade marks 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 property law protects people from having their work stolen or copying
things like: names of products or brands, design or look of a product and things you
write, make or produce. You own an intellectual property if you: created the work,
bought intellectual property rights from the creator and have a brand that could be a
trademark.

For magazines, the producers must take care to not use any work that they do not
own the rights to. They would do this by using their own original work, for example
creating their own logos and design for the magazine. If they did break this law then
it could result in a lawsuit.

For PCGAMER they avoid breaking the intellectual property laws by creating and
using their own magazine layouts, logos, magazine name and masthead, using
images that are free by the public domain, they would ensure they follow this law by
having multiple people checking the work has not been copied from any other
publishings.

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 any images or text that would be
considered obscene for example picturing nudity or violence could be considered
obscene.
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 breaking this law, PCGAMER would not include any images or text that
could be considered obscene, for example nudity or violence, they would also check
their articles and images to make sure they aren’t obscene.

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 peoples land without express permission and
if broken would result in a fine if found accountable.

Magazine producers would avoid breaking this law by not using private property for
things like photoshoots or interviews without gaining the land owners permission
beforehand.

To avoid breaking this law PCGAMER would acquire permission from the land owner
to use the land for something like photoshoots or entering to conduct an interview.
However, due to the nature of the magazines genre, gaming, they most likely would
not require photoshoots for articles, instead they would get images from the game
that the article is referring to or the games developers would send the publishers
images for them to use.

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, for example this law covers telephone numbers, addresses and filming
in people's homes without their consent. The invasion of privacy is a criminal law.

Magazine publishers would avoid breaking this law by not including people's
personal information in text and images, for example they would avoid including
people’s telephone numbers or addresses unless consent is given beforehand. They
would also ensure they don’t break this law by having multiple people check the work
before the magazine is printed and sent out.

PCGAMER follows this law by avoiding using people’s personal information in

images and text, for example they would avoid people’ telephone numbers and
addresses unless they have consent from the person.

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 damaged by false
written or spoken statements, as this is a Civil law breaking it can lead to a lawsuit.

Magazine producers would avoid breaking this law by not writing any false
statements that would damaged the reputations of people mentioned.

To not break this law PCGAMER would make sure to not include any articles that
include false statements that could damage the reputation of people mentioned
within the articles, slander is not relevant in magazines, however libel is because of
the written text included in the magazines.

Ethical Constraints

Ethical constraints refers to what is considered morally right and wrong, this is not a
legal issue, unless it is considered too extreme, and is based on judgements and
societal standards. If ethical lines are crossed it could create harm, offence and
controversy. In terms of media production, unethical actions could cause a bad
reputation for the media product, meaning they may lose their audience. People can
complain to the related regulatory body of the product, for example, the ASA for
advertisements and the IPSO for print media.

Protecting under 18s

Media products should include content, images and text, that is appropriate for under
18’s which means that the producers of the media product must censor content that
might be considered inappropriate for under 18’s for example violence or nudity.
Content including anyone who is underage isn’t considered as unethical, however,
they must not include the names, phone numbers or addresses of anyone who is
under 18 as this would be considered unethical and would be an intrusion of privacy
and mustn’t disclose any information which could cause damage or harm to a
person's reputation who is underage.

Magazine producers should only include content that is appropriate for under 18’s
and should censor any content that is inappropriate for under 18’s and exclude any
information relating to people who are under 18 which could be compromising as to
avoid any ethical issues.

PCGAMER would not include any compromising information about people who are
under 18 for example names, phone numbers or addresses, they also would not
include any information which could damage their reputation or cause harm to them.
They would also only include text and images which are appropriate for under 18s
for example they would not include images of nudity or violence.

Representation
Representation refers to the way in which people, places and events are portrayed in
a media product. In media products nothing is real and is a representation of reality
as it is constructed using editing, different camera shots, sounds and mise en scene
to create particular representations of people, places and events. Stereotypes are a
part of representation. Stereotypes are representations that have been reduced to a
few defining characteristics, which are often negative which could cause harm and
offence to the people in the social groups portrayed by the stereotypes by creating a
negative image of that social group.

Magazine producers can avoid ethical issues related to representation by avoiding

negative stereotypes which would cause harm or offence to the social groups that
are being presented by the stereotypes.

PCGAMER would avoid causing ethical issues by ensuring that they exclude any
negative stereotypes about any social groups and make sure they don’t represent
people, paces and events in a way that could be considered unethical, however
because the vast majority of the magazines articles are about video games it is
unlikely that they would represent things in a way that would cause harm and offense
as video games are, for the most part, based of of fictional characters and
events.However, games can include content which could cause ethical issues, for
example they may cover a game that contains sexist depictions of women.
PCGAMER would be careful to only include images from the game that don't show
negative depictions that could cause harm and offense to the audience.

Production methods
Production methods refers to the methods the media publishers use to gain
information and content that would be included in media products, for example, using
hidden microphones to record conversations without consent or exploiting vulnerable
people to get information are both considered as unethical.

Magazine producers must not use unethical production methods when producing the
magazine, for example, they can not use hidden microphones or recording devices
without people’s consent in order to gain information for their magazine.

PCGAMER would avoid causing ethical issues by ensuring that they do not make
use of unethical production methods like using hidden recording equipment or
exploiting vulnerable people for information. Due to PCGAMER being a gaming
magazine, with articles relating to specific games the majority of information used is
sent to the publishers directly from the relevant games development company.

Content
Content refers to the content that is included within the media products. Media
products should not show support for negative thoughts, ideas or actions which
could be considered unethical. Media products shouldn’t glamorise negative
thoughts, ideas or actions. They should also include content that is appropriate for
everyone. Content that is considered unethical includes things such as nudity or
violence.

Magazine producers can avoid ethical issues related to the content in the magazine
by checking text and images and then censoring any text that may contain content
that supports or promotes negative thoughts, ideas or actions that could be deemed
as unethical and removing any images that are inappropriate, for example images
that contain nudity or violence.

PCGAMER would need to avoid any text or imagery that shows support for negative
thoughts, ideas or actions, for example, violence or nudity. As PCGAMER is a
gaming magazine and because video games often include violent topics and actions,
PCGAMER would have to be careful not to show support for any violent actions or
topics, in text or images, which the games they cover may include, they would also
have to take care not to glamorise any violent actions or topics.