Legal Issues and Regulation

When producing media products, there are a range of legal and regulatory issues you must be aware of:

Privacy:

The Human Rights Act (1998) says: “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.”

If filming people, Some aspects to consider will include:

People could be asked if they consent to the filming. If they don’t consent then they could be blurred out so that their right to privacy isn’t compromised

The production company would need to be extra cautious with the following:

It could be a sensitive environment for people which needs care and consideration

Children or elderly who may not be able to understand or give consent

You are allowed to take photos of people in public if they are for editorial use (such as news or a current affairs magazine)

If you are aggressive or intimidating you could be guilty of harassment

People have a right to privacy. Whilst a photographer may take a photo of someone in public, they would not be allowed to go into their garden or home to do this.

Public and Private Spaces:

Many people believe that a public space is any space where the public are allowed to go, however, Before you can start filming or taking photographs you need to know if a space is public or private.

Just because it looks like a town centre, it could be a shopping complex and the public spaces and walkways may be owned by a private landowner or a local council. Whilst the area is open to the general public, if it is privately owned, there could be rules such as ‘no filming’. The shops or buildings that could appear in the background need to be considered. 

In Public Spaces:

Photography and filming for personal use:

You have a right to take photos in public spaces if they are for personal use

Editorial use:

You have a right to photograph a newsworthy event or film an interview for a news Vox Pop in a public space as long as you don’t obstruct the highway or harass people

Commercial use:

You may need permissions such as highways permission, council permission and buildings permission (for background buildings).

In Private Spaces:

You will always need permission to film or photograph in private spaces.

• If you do not have permission you will be trespassing

• A fee often needs to be paid to the owner of the private space

Carrying out a commercial photoshoot or filming often requires many permissions such as:

• Permissions to use the location

• Buildings permission

• Model release forms - These give permission to film/photograph a person; if 20 people were in a photoshoot, each one would need a model release form.

Defamation:

Defamation is making false statements against a person or business which damages their reputation

Slander is a verbal statement of defamation

Libel is a statement of defamation in the media. Newspapers and news broadcasts need to be very careful to not make false statements.

Media producers need to be aware that publishing inaccurate personal information will have negative impacts on people

People affected may take media producers or publishers to court for defamation or libel

Compensation for libel is up to £300,000

Data Prtoection Act 2018:

The Data Protection Act (2018) expects companies to store data:

• Fairly and lawfully

• Accurately and securely

• Only for as long as it is needed

• Only store the minimum amount of data needed

People, known as data subjects, have the right to:

• View data stored about them

• Have data that is incorrect about them updated

Media producers and publishers need to be careful that they use personal data accurately and within the conditions of the Data Protection Act

Fines for breaches of the data protection act are up to £17.5 million or 4% of annual turnover (whichever is higher)

Human Rights Act 1988:

The Human Rights Act (1998) says: “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.”

BBFC:

Films in the UK are classified into different age ratings by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC)

BBFC film and video ratings: U, PG, 12, 12A, 15, 18

PEGI:

Computer games are classified by the Pan European Game Information (PEGI) system

PEGI computer games ratings: 3, 7, 12, 16, 18

ASA:

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is responsible for regulating the contents of adverts

• It is paid for by the advertising industry

• They may ban adverts from being published or broadcast

• Its judgements reflect regulations and help prevent adverts from misleading people or exaggerating how good products or services are

Ofcom:

The Office of Communications (Ofcom) regulates broadcasting and telecommunications

• It protects the public from harmful or offensive material

• It is also responsible for broadcasting licences

Health and Safety

Some possible risks and hazards include:

• Working at heights for actors, set builders and camera crew

• Trip hazards, such as from power cables and dolly tracks

• Electrocution hazards

• Lifting heavy equipment

• Firearms and stunts

• Long hours – exhaustion

• Vehicles

• Working in very hot or cold locations

• The general public

The Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) makes businesses responsible for:

• Protecting all workers, clients, visitors and general public

• Training for staff in health and safety procedures

• Businesses must protect people as ‘far as is reasonably practicable’ - essentially, they have a duty to protect you but only as far as is fair to expect.

Health and safety regulations (Display Screen Equip.) 1992:

These regulation say that employers must:

• carry out a risk assessment of workstations used by employees to reduce risks

• ensure that employees take regular breaks from looking at their screens

• pay for yearly eye tests if the employee requests them

• provide their computer users with health and safety training for any workstations that they use

Recces

Before any filming takes place, the location will be visited and checked in what is known as a ‘recce’

A number of possible locations may be visited

Key information about the location will be considered like:

• Access to the location and parking for both crew and actors

• Lighting – are shadows cast by buildings or mountains; when are daylight hours?

• Unwanted background noise such as aircraft or traffic

• Buildings or objects that don’t match the scene – for example, a Victorian house for a period drama that has a skyscraper in the background may limit the shooting angles

• Typical weather conditions

• Health and safety issues

• Is there access to electricity or will generators be needed?

Risk Assessments

The document that lists all the risks in a production is called a risk assessment. The purpose of a risk assessment is to:

• Identify all potential risks that may occur

• Show how these risks will be reduced or eliminated

There are five steps to doing a risk assessment

1. Record your significant findings

2. Decide who might be harmed and how

3. Evaluate the risks and decide on precautions

4. Record your significant findings

5. Review your assessment and update if necessary

Risk assessments need to be recorded

• Records are likely to be on a template (e.g. a Word document)

• Larger companies may have online systems to record their risk assessments 

File Formats

Some possible file formats:

• Office documents: PPT (PowerPoint), DOC (Word), XLS (Excel)

• Images: JPG, PNG, GIF, EPS, TIFF, RAW

• Video: MP4, MOV, WMV, AVI

• Audio: MP3, WAV, AAC

• Sharing documents: PDF

Compression:

Some files such as video, music or images are very large

This requires lots of disk space to store

Compression is used to reduce the size of a file.