Understanding ethical and legal constraints within the media sector
Why is it important to consider ethical issues when producing media? It is very important to consider ethnical issues when it comes to making and presenting your programme, advert or trailer. You have to be careful about the content that you decide to include, not only can you be the judge of how strong the content is, but also the audience and legal teams. If for instance the BBFC, a legal team or court decide that some of the content is out of order, or in breach of their regulations, then this could lead to further legal terms, or deeper punishment. How is gender represented in film? ender is represented in most films as fair and necessary. By this I mean that bigger, stronger characters are played by males, as that meets their stereotype. !hilst female actors tend to play not so much a lesser role, but they play a role with not as strong as a character, not being as dominant as a male. !hen it comes to younger ages, girls tend to play the sweeter roles, whilst boys normally play a stereotype role. "hey tend to be sat around or #uite adventurous, not something in the middle. What is the Films Act (1985? "he films act of $%&' got rid of the (ady )evy system which was created in $%'*. "he (ady )evy system was a way of ta+ing the bo+ office to help support the British Film Industry, but when the government realised that this wasn,t going according to plan, they then bought in the Film -ct in $%&'. "he Film -ct then meant that filmmakers most now find their own sources f funding. .owever, in /0$/, this act was dropped and Britain encouraged film makers into the industry ta+ free. What is the !ideo "ecordings Act (198#? "he 1ideo 2ecordings -ct $%&3 is an -ct of the 4arliament of the 5nited 6ingdom that was passed in $%&3. It states that commercial video recordings offered for sale or for hire within the 56 must carry a classification that has been agreed upon by an authority designated by the .ome 7ffice. "he BBFC was designated as the classifying authority in $%&'. Before this there was no legali8ation as to what could and what couldn,t be released on video or to who they could be supplied to. LO2 Understanding the Creative Media Sector What would $e the conse%uences for $rea&ing copyright law? Copyright laws are rules that are put to protect a person9s creative original work from being duplicated without attribution to the owner. "here are different conse#uences for breaking copyright law such monetary fines, loss employment, loss of freedom and loss of property. Copyright law protects copyrighted material so that only the owner has e+clusive rights to it for a designated period of time. "his means that anyone wishing to use the material must gain permission from the owner. "he conse#uences for breaking copyright law include fines, sei8ure of illegal copies of work, and imprisonment. Fines can be issued for the loss of profit by the owner or statutory damages.