Vibe Productions: Understanding the creative media sector

LO2: Understand the legal and ethical constraints

LO3: Understand the regulation of the media sector

Understand the ethical and legal constraints with in the media sector
1.

In order to get the job you are required to understand the following within the media sector your have
chosen. During the interview you will be asked to hand over a written document containing information on
the following aspects of your area.

Video recording act

Copy Right law

Why is it important within your industry?

The copyright law is very important in my chosen industry (TV) because it
gives the creators and publishers of any program the rights to control the
ways in which their material may be used.
What is its purpose?
The purpose for the copyright law is to keep people from stealing or using
others work and content for themselves.
Who does it protect?
The copyright law is very important in any industry and protects a lot. This
law prevents others from using and taking credit for other peoples work.
This law is taken very seriously and is illegal.
What happens if it is broken?
If this law is broken you could receive a polite letter or email from the
author asking you to remove the material from your website or otherwise
stop use of the work. You could get a notice demanding you cease and
desist using and distributing the copyrighted work, or you might discover
that your Internet service provider has already removed infringing content.
You could face penalties of more than $100,000 for each infringed work. You
could go to jail. It all depends on the extent of the infringement.
Find examples of when it has been broken and outcome
Google was fined 25,000 for breaking Belgian copyright law for every day
since September, the total fine for this act was 3.45 million.
Google published links to newspapers in Belgium without permission, a
Belgian court said that Google was sued by a group of Belgian publishers
last September, charged with breaking copyright by listing stories and shot
parts on its news site.

Importance of ethical issues

Use of language
The use of language depends on the aria and the area. The vocabulary has
changed over the years and things that would usually be said 60 years ago
would be illegal or very offensive/racist nowadays. Considering this to
create a good film or television program, producers have to be aware that
using this vocabulary would be very affective and realistic but at the same
time could be classed as racist and offensive. Viewers must know that this
use of language in television and film is shown in a negative way and not in

Representation of gender

Representation of religious beliefs

How should men and women be

represented?
Does your chosen industry
represent people fairly?

2.

a positive. They are trying to inform how bad it was. A

good example for this could be Django Unchained and
Twelve Years Of Slave.
Equal opportunities
Different types of people having the opportunity to work
in the film industry
Encouraging diversity
By having a more diverse workforce, its easier to
represent society
How are men and women represented in your
chosen industry?
Ideally, men and women in the TV industry should be treated and
represented in an equal way but this is still not the case sometimes.
Compared to the TV industry over 20 years ago men and women are
represented more equally now to then but not completely. If you look at
most large television companies the highest employees are mostly men.
Although this is the case they are still working on the equality of men and
women and now there have been a lot of noticeable changes since the last
couple years ago.
Are they seen as strong or weak etc.?
Over 10 years ago men were represented as stronger and better at doing
most jobs but nowadays women and men are near to equal in the work
force.
Supported with examples
A good example of the equal representation of men and women is in the
news. Most news station on set have 2 reporters and they are always one
man and one woman. This shows that they are as equal as one another. An
example for inequality of men and women is that women are not allowed to
fight in the front line in the army, only men are.
Religion is something that the Television industry does not ignore. The
industry makes sure that they do not produce any resist or offensive
comments in a negative way as they would get many complaints and would
most likely get a large fine in result.
Men and women show be represented equally because then it will give
women a chance to prove how much they can do in jobs that they dont get
hired for.
My chosen industry is Television and I thing this industry represents men
and women fairly equal. This industry must also do this because it could be
classed as sexist.

Explain what the following bodies do and why they are important (choose the ones related to your
media sector only)

Do not just cut and paste their about us page please read it and put it into your own words.
Add links to their pages
Distinction grade learners will find cases

British Board of Film Classification

Film Distributors Association,

British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA),

Television, Radio and Telecommunications Office for

Communication (Ofcom)
Advertising Standards Authority (ASA),

The British Academy Of Film And Television Arts is a charity

run on their own to identify and reward excitant acting or
producing in moving images.
Ofcom is one of the governing bodies in the media sector
for advertising. They are the communication regulator in
the UK. They regulate the TV and radio sectors making sure
people get the best from their communications
ASA is the other governing bodies in the media sector. ASA
is the UKs independent regulator of advertising. They apply
advertising codes and they also prevent misleading,
harmful or offensive advertising.
Adverts can be banned depending on what content it
contains. The ASA can decide whether to keep the advert
on air or ban it. An example of a banned advert was the
Reebok advert. This sports brand was ordered to refund

$25m (16m) to customers in 2011.

The reason why this happened was that
the advert was incredibly misleading to
viewers. After promising that its Easy
Tone shoes could firm users buttocks
and legs, despite producing no evidence
to support this claim ASA received
millions of complaints about this sports
brand.
This advert should defiantly be banned as it is misleading to
viewers. Any advert could be regulated, taking the
misleading comments or footage out of the advert to
replace it with something else could work but might lose
sails.
The Independent Games Developers Association (IGDA),
British Web Design and Marketing Association
British Interactive Multimedia Association (BIMA)
Press Complaints Commission (PCC),

3.

Then discuss the issues that these regulatory bodies may face with regard to

Consumer choice

Freedom of information

Censorship

Taste and decency

Deadline: Week starting 14th December 2015