Legal and Ethical Considerations

It’s important when working to consider the legal and ethical constraints, however there is a difference between the two. Legal considerations cover things like, copyright, human rights act and the defamation act. Ethical constraints however are in place to prevent anything of offence going onto things like, film, TV, radio, advertising and Instagram posts.

Legal Considerations

With my podcast there are a number of problems that I could face and none more so than that of copyright infringement.

Copyright

Copyright exists to protect other peoples work from being used without their permission. This can stretch from anything to videos, pictures, audio or written work. Straight away if you create anything like, original writing, dramatic, musical and art work, illustrations, photography. Having copyright protects your work from, people copying it, showing your work in public and making an adaption of your work.

How copyright can affect my podcast:

The main way that copyright can effect my podcast is for my intro. The intro is full of clips that have been downloaded and edited down from their original state.  Obviously with converting them from YouTube to MP4 file, it’s coming from someone else’s YouTube channel. When using the video I have obviously took into account copyright but for the intro there was certain clips that I wanted and needed. I appreciate that these guidelines aren’t in place to stop me from producing any sort of work, they are there to stop not just me, but anyone from taking credit from anyone else’s work. I’ll be sure to stress when its uploaded to YouTube that no copyright is intended and I will try to credit all of the original users.

Fair use:

A “fair use” is copying any protected material (texts, sounds, images, etc.) for a limited and “transformative” purpose, like criticising, commenting, parodying, news reporting, teaching the copyrighted work. Under the US copyright laws, fair use is not an infringement of copyright. The people who judge if any infringements have been made typically consider four factors that are set forth in the Copyright Act.

Human Rights Act: 

With the Human Rights Act there are a number of articles and protocols that aren’t really a lot to do with media, however if I had to relate an article to work within media it would be article 10 which is, freedom of expression. Work, especially within media, a lot of it is about expression. Article 10, protects your freedom to have your own opinions and the ability to be able to express those thoughts freely. Expression within article 10 can come within the form of, books, leaflets, television, art and through social media. In todays society though however, people run a fine line between expressing their opinions and they abuse this particular article, knowing or unknowingly.

Defamation Act:

Like the Human Right Acts, theres a lot of different categories, 17 to be exact. The Act forms a law on the right off 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. 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.

This will come into my podcast, for example, when talking about the players or what not I have to be careful with what I say to make sure that it’s not offensive. I can still maintain my opinion, the line between opinion and what you could class as abuse has to be clear if I’m to stay within the Defamation Act when filming my podcast.