Legal issues

Legal and ethical issues task

Libel is “published statements that are false and damaging to somebody’s reputation”
whereas copyright “is the right of the creator to print publish record and or own a material”.
In a corporate sense both terms would be important. They would need to be wary of libel
because to not be could be detrimental to the company involving them in possible lawsuits.
Copyright would be equally important as libel as copyright laws are legally binding and must
be followed otherwise you could face fines and court sentences. There are some exceptions
to copyright specifically regarding disability, such as allowing a disabled person or someone
acting on their behalf to make a copy of a work for personal use and allow the formatting of
it to be more accessible. The law that exists to regulate obscenity in copyrighted work is
“the obscene publications act” 1959. This law can be problematic as it can regulate the
artistic integrity of media. The regulation authority for media in the UK is Ofcom. Because
this organization regulates copyright in all media it is applicable for corporate videos.

As media students we must consider the ethical issues of representation in media. Making
sure not to represent a place or a people poorly.