Legal & Ethical Issues that affect the Media Industry
Legal Issues
Intellectual property rights (IP)
Intellectual Property (IP) refers to creations and inventions, literary and artistic works, designs, symbols, names and images used in commerce. It is essentially any original creation that we put out into the world. IP is protected by law through aspects called Patents, Copyright and Trademarks. These enable people to earn recognition or even earn money, have financial gains from their inventions or creations. The aim is to harness an environment where creativity and innovation can flourish.
Copyright is the legal right that protects the use of your work once your idea has been physically expressed. In the UK and the US there is no need to declare each piece, all your work is automatically protected. In other countries, such as in Italy, you have to register each piece of work, at least in the music industry, which is the one I am most familiar with. You can state on your website or published work that the pieces you have put out there are your own original creations and even protect your whole website by putting the copyright in relation to your name and the date. I know that as a creative, as a musician specifically, there are other unofficial techniques of protecting your creations before they have even been recorded properly and put out there. You can make a simple recording of the piece and send it to yourself on a CD or USB stick so you have evidence of the date it arrived to you, so if in the process of putting the piece out there, if you play it live, put up videos of you playing it, put up pre-production versions of it, etc. it is protected should anyone feel they like it so much that they want to use it to make financial gain without your permission. Though this is obviously of concern, it is important to remember that there is another way to look at it, which is founded in shared knowledge and the law of abundance rather than competition. Creative Commons is a non-profit organisation that helps overcome legal obstacles to the sharing of knowledge and creativity. On their website, there is a choice of licenses available, and their main aim is to enable collaboration, growth and generosity in the media.
Fair dealing is a legal term used to establish whether a use of copyrighted material is lawful or whether there is an infringement of said copyright. It is essentially the limitation and exception to the exclusive rights granted by copyright law to the author of a creative piece of work. Fair dealing is found in many of the common law jurisdictions found in the Commonwealth of Nations. For example, if a piece of work is used in an educational or news setting, there are laws in place which allow for this to happen without copyright being infringed upon. If you want to use somebody’s work in a blog, for example, you may want to have a document stating you have the right to use said work. There are a number of websites which provide media, such as photography, where the authors have already given permission for their work to be used. This is done under the Creative Commons License, as explained previously. An example of this, which I use a fair amount when writing these blogs, is the website Unsplash. It is set up pretty well, where the photographers can create a profile for themselves and also offer their services, so it hopefully gives them visibility and a way of gaining business and earning money indirectly from sharing their images for bloggers and other creatives to use.
Trademarks are a type of intellectual property that is visually recognised. It is a badge by which customers find your products or services in the marketplace. The person who owns that badge or logo has the exclusive right to use it. Trademarks can be registered and it will look like ® or TM.
Patents are a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to prevent others from making, using or selling an invention for a certain amount of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention. It is what takes up the most amount of paperwork in order to legally protect yourself. Patents tend to apply to situations where you have invented something that is brand new and not out on the market and because this is a one-of-a-kind idea or concept you have come up with and you want to be as profitable as possible, it is advisable to work alongside a lawyer or having a good mind for it in order to do the legwork yourself, and take the time to fill out the appropriate paperwork for full, effective protection.
Media example of a copyright infringement case:
In 2013 the 5-year legal battle for copyright infringement of Marvin Gaye’s 1977 hit song “Got to Give It Up” came to a conclusion, with a verdict in favour of Marvin Gaye’s estate. The music industry has seen a flurry of these cases and it is certainly a delicate area as are we risking stifling creativity? At the end of the day, there are only a certain number of chords and progressions available and also styles. In this particular case, I do agree with the verdict and also especially because of how much money was made from Williams’ track, but it certainly is debatable.
How could copyright affect me or my work? This is an important topic for me as a musician and something I have had to deal with a lot as regards my original music, as mentioned previously. I have to be careful to protect my original tracks and protect my rights. I have no issue with them being reproduced by other artists but if money is made I certainly would want recognition and part of the gains.
Data protection Act 2018
The Data Protection Act 2018 is UK legislation that repeals the 1998 Act; it implements discretions delegated to EU Member States under the GDPR; it provides for the role, responsibilities and enforcement powers of the Information Commissioner and sets data protection standards for processing activities that do not fall within the purview of the GDPR.
A media or industry example of a data breach, when you search online for one, shows up many examples of this happening now. This is highly concerning. Here are three examples:
Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust
This affects every single one of us as users of the internet and consumers. This really is something we should all educate ourselves on more, especially on our rights. When we open a website we can customise the cookie preferences. How many of us take the time to even understand what this means? What are cookies anyway?
If we start to educate ourselves on the true nature of data, we might just find the rabbit hole is far deeper than might first seem. There are a number of documentaries available on Netflix which have dealt with this subject in a really thought-provoking way. A few years ago, The Social Dilemma hit the screens and got tongues wagging. One of the experts interviewed is a certain Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. She speaks of the nature of the cost of platforms being free, data harvesting, and brings to the light the need for our legal system to catch up to the digital reality we now find surrounding us. This documentary also talks about targeted advertising and asks whether our choices are indeed our own? A lot can be said on this topic and we’ll cover more when we look at ethics, but in a world dominated by marketing, advertising and political persuasion, perhaps we hold more power than they would like for us to realise?
Defamation. Defamation is speaking negatively about another's reputation without good reason or justification, especially when it has a negative impact on a person or brand, typically financially, but also emotionally and spiritually. Both libel and slander are forms of defamation. The difference is libel is found in print, and slander is found in speech.
A Media or industry example of a defamation case is that of Johnny Depp and his former wife, Amber Heard, and Depp was victorious, which is interesting considering how difficult it is for a man nowadays to speak out about injustices concerning women and physical abuse.
When considering how libel or slander could potentially affect me or my work, it is something I haven’t really ever considered, so it is certainly interesting to sit with this a moment. I sadly have been the victim of discrimination, but that’s not defamation. Defamation could prevent someone from getting work, have unsaid prejudices against them which might exclude them from opportunities and much more.
Contracts & Employment law
Legal contracts
A legal contract is a legally enforceable agreement between private parties that generates mutual obligations. Three examples of contract types include:
zero hour contracts: these can be a flexible option for both employers and workers, for example, if the work is not constant or is 'as and when'.
With these contracts, the employer does not have to give you any minimum hours and of course, there is no holiday or sick pay. Essentially, these contracts have sneaked in and ultimately take away workers’ rights because I doubt they compensate at a higher rate so that the worker can sort out their own holiday and sick pay and compensate for the potential risk of no earnings between ‘gigs’.
temporary contract: this is an agreement to work for an employer for a specific time, such as over the summer or for another busy season. It might even be taken out through an agency.
freelance contract: This specifies the terms of employment between a freelancer (or contractor) and the person or business who needs their services. A detailed freelance contract ensures that both parties know what to anticipate from one other. If you don't have a freelance contract form in place, you're vulnerable to non-payment, liabilities, and possibly legal issues.
Working to a brief is something the contractor and employer/client have both agreed to contractually. It is the set of conditions which state the responsibilities, duties, compensation and benefits.
What could some of the penalties be for breach of contract? In theory, one could be fired, made redundant, or even sued, and as regards the employer legal action could be taken out against them too, although in a world of different sized fish, they might not care too much about the “little” freelancing fish.
In the media there are many occasions when a breach of employment contract becomes reality. For instances, if a film is going over budget and they can’t meet payments or future contracts; or an actor that is no longer available but the movie studio has a contract in place with that actor and so they might now be sued for breach of contract. An example of this is Emily Blunt wanted to accept the role of Black Widow in Iron Man 2, but she had to drop out because she was already contracted to do Gulliver's Travels.
As regards personal experience, being a freelancer, I have had a lot of experience with different contracts and different jobs, and this could provide enough information for a blog post of its own. I have had great experiences with clients, some who even helped me write my first serious contract as a freelancer as there was trust and friendship in place already, to clients who have tried not to pay or to demand more than what had been agreed. As a musician, I also made agreements around use of particular tracks in exchange for help with production and being included on certain labels. And that too, is a whole post of its own.
An example of how an employment contract has in fact affected me is I was working as an independent contractor for a particular App, based in California. I was told after nearly two years of working with them that they had ‘just realised’ that they legally couldn’t keep on contractors for more than two years, so they were going to have to let a whole bunch of us go. Did they really just realise? They are a large company and I find it difficult to believe this, but regardless, what could I do? My contract didn’t state this in any way, but ultimately they had the legal right, as stated in the contract, to fire me with a month’s notice, which they fulfilled.
2010 Equality Act (EQA) and UK Web Accessibility Laws
The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society.
It replaced previous anti-discrimination laws with a single Act, making the law easier to understand and strengthening protection in some situations. It sets out the different ways in which it’s unlawful to treat someone. So, for example, a business or shop owner does not have the right to refuse your custom based on anything which differentiates you from someone else, eg. - how you dress, the colour of you skin or any medical issues, among many factors. How does this then apply to website accessibility? Websites in theory must be accessible to all. If we take the NHS website as an example, as a health provider this is of particular importance. They have a legal obligation to do so under the Accessibility Act. Every time new technology is released and used in the public domain, what is the impact this has on us as a collective and with particular attention paid to anyone with a disability? 10% of people on average have some level of colour blindness, for example, so it is certainly an area worth some consideration. For website builders or anyone using a website builder online, it is worth finding out about Accessibility Testing to ascertain how accessible and compliant to the act your website really is.
So, as we can see, the NHS is a prime example of a website which must adhere to these laws, but in theory it applies to all websites, so it is definitely worth considering and educating ourselves on when creating websites independently.
When considering my own website, I have received some consultation from web designers and this topic has come up, even with something as simple as the choice of font and colour which might make it difficult for some people to read the text. It is still a work in progress, so watch this space…
Ethical Issues
Why are ethics important? Let’s start with a definition of ‘ethics’. When looking on the Meriam-Webster dictionary this is, in part, what I found:
a set of moral principles: a theory or system of moral values
a consciousness of moral importance
a guiding philosophy
There are many examples of questionable ethics in the media and in numerous industries, despite these laws being in place. In recent years this has come under much scrutiny and created a lot of division and strife. During the Covid crisis, many people were put under pressure to be jabbed, sometimes against their will, for fear of losing their jobs. We all know someone to whom this applies. It is perhaps the nurses which tugged at my heart strings the most. We all know the gruelling work they do and from personal experience I know it is primarily the nurses who look after the patients, working long shifts and really they are angels on this earth. When a large number of them refused to take the shot, they were faced with extreme pressure and the threat of losing their jobs. This article tells the story. and the Guardian provides some interesting questions to consider. Fast forward and the workplace and the media have changed their tune considerably and following a public consultation, this requirement was dropped. This article tells us more. Needless to say we all have our views on this contentious topic, but surely the individual right to choose what to do with one’s own body and medical choices should always be respected.
As mentioned above, the right to exercise medical freedom has clipped many people’s wings. I used to work in the travel industry and it is one where this has caused many problems for people along the way. What is right? What is freedom? What is legal? So many questions really worth considering.
Moving on, it is interesting to consider what happens if you sign a work contract and then when you actually go to do the job, you realise that what is required and stated in the contract is actually unethical and goes against your personal code of ethics? You’ve already signed a contract to say that it is ok and ultimately if you can only have the job if you accept to work in such conditions is that also a form of coercion? What are the moral compromises that are being made along the way? Again, all very important questions to consider. I have personal experience of this, involving driving long distances sometimes for 10 - 12 hours in one day, which no professional driver would ever be forced or expected to do. I did end up saying no in the end to some of these drives, but I did not always have the opportunity to do so and I certainly would have lost my job had I put my foot down any more.
Relationship with client
Good client relationship is vital for returning customers and to optimise on word-of-mouth marketing. Listening to client needs and respecting client wishes among other aspects will make happy customers and provide your business good referrals.
As a freelancer and someone who has predominantly worked with people, my business and success has depended on happy customers. I have had many students and travellers come back and become regular clients, which is certainly testament to my personable nature and professional aptitude. I have always listened to any feedback and tried to make necessary changes. It is hard to hear negative feedback but if we consider it more as constructive criticism then we can but grow and as we grow as people so does our business.
The ‘media effects’ debate
What do we mean by the ‘media effects’ debate? More often than not by media nowadays we are often referring to social media, which has entered pretty much all of our lives. The positives connected to social media include giving each and every one of us a voice, allowing smaller businesses and organisations, along with individuals the opportunity to do fundraising and marketing and our messages can be shared very quickly and effectively. Though it does give the individual Joe Blogg more power and a voice, unfortunately, there is a fair amount of manipulation as regards our feed and how much visibility we are allowed to have depending on what we post and share. I would go so far as to say that there is outright censorship now, becoming much worse in the last couple of years. It begs the question ‘What is real?’ These social media platforms become all too easily echo chambers and forms our world view of things which can be completely the opposite to what someone else sees. Who is right? How do we know? What can we trust? The age of discernment is upon us and is needed now more than ever. Mass media dictates what reality is but how do we know what is actually happening in the world? It is no secret that media companies are really just six media groups, so it is in the hands of very few people. Do we know who? The media effects debate is a highly interesting and complex one. I remember reading a book named “Mediated: How the media shapes your world and the Way you Live in it” by Thomas de Zengotita, many years ago, just as social media was entering our way of life, and it opened my mind to the concept that when we have a filter between us and the world, we would do well to best understand what that filter is about.
Media example of ‘media effects’ being cited: Ironically, there is a wide choice of documentaries, articles and other media out there which are bringing light to the dangers of media, especially social media, and the darker side to these tech companies and the mass surveillance that has been happening on everyday people. These companies have more information on us than our governments do, so it would be wise to consider the power they potentially have on our political systems. It goes deep and two excellent documentaries out there include:
The Social Dilemma and The Great Hack. Below is the trailer for the latter:
Other aspects of media worth paying attention to is the digital surveillance which comes with this new technology. It is becoming common knowledge that we are being spied on, especially by home assistants such as Alexa, but did you know that our phones and computers are also listening?
The ‘media effects’ debate affects all of us, whether for work or personally. Interestingly, there is an important difference in social media content across the world. Below is a video which explains how Tik Tok is different in various parts of the world. It seems that whereas in the West where Tik Tok shows anything and everything and very often content which has very low educational value, the equivalent in China is aimed at educating their young.
Representation (eg race, age & gender)
The term representation in the media refers to how people, institutions, businesses and events are depicted. Recent times has seen a shift in aspects of representation as there is more emphasis on representing groups of people who have been historically disenfranchised, including black people and women. However, it is important and interesting to note how discernment here too is crucial.
A noteworthy example of representation in the media in recent years surrounds the organisation BLM. It came about out of nowhere in 2020. In a time of social distancing, suddenly there are mass protests which seem to be accepted by the mainstream, all in the name of defending an unknown black man named George Floyd, who was reported to have been killed by a police officer in the States, in a gruesome and dramatic way. Overnight it was everywhere in our media. There was outrage and outcry. People started pulling down statues of historical people who had played an active role in the slave trade, Bristol comes to mind here, and when I look up for articles on this all that fills the first page of Google are the articles from the BBC and the Guardian newspapers. What about the rest? What about opposing views? Where are they?
I remember at the time being intrigued by all of this because I couldn’t understand why there was so much negativity against smaller gatherings of protestors who were trying to voice their concerns about the lockdowns and yet thousands of people were allowed to march in the name of a total stranger in another country. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for minority groups having a voice, I’m an ethnic minority myself, but something didn’t sit right with me on this. Fast forward months into the future and truths start emerging surrounding the so-called founder of BLM. Some people know about this, not many it seems, and certainly what seems to be missing is critical thought and questions asked on this. So representation is important and interesting and has to go hand in hand with discernment.
So, considering we live in this highly mediated world, what we say, write and share on social media can have a huge impact nowadays. One would do well to stay away from any political topics unless your work is political in nature. It could well have a negative effect on your persona and have an impact on your work opportunities. Ultimately, we all have an opinion, but perhaps these can be kept more for in-person conversations where we can really discuss and learn from each other.
Blasphemy
Blasphemy is defined as contemptuous or profane speech or action concerning God or a sacred entity. Some might also say it is taking God’s name in vain. Perhaps this happens so much nowadays that we don’t even realise it.
An example of this in the public sphere is what happened with Salman Rushdie. Some years ago the Indian-born British writer was attacked while giving a lecture when his book The Satanic Verses was condemned by Iranian leader Ayatollah Rullolah Khomeini for blasphemy. A fatwa was then issued and this resulted in him going into exile. As a result he became an advocate for free speech and an example to others.
Being accused of blasphemy can happen to any one of us. Of course it is important to have respect for all faiths and beliefs and the line between freedom of speech and blasphemy can certainly be thin at times. I would generally put any of these issues discussed in this article down to common sense. I am an advocate of freedom of speech, discernment and critical thought. Ultimately though we can live in harmony with our differences and conflicts too if we can embrace our own emotions, find true sovereignty and with mutual respect, become living examples of loving-kindness, hence my recent training in Heart Intelligence. We can heal the world, one heart at a time.
