Legal and Ethical Considerations

Copy Right Law

Producers of a Multimedia program need to know the rules against the
Copyright laws. As Multimedia products have the uses of Text, Graphics,
Audio, Video and Animation and many different softwares and program
being used in the making so it would be very helpful knowing the
Multimedia and especially the DVD Menu copyright laws as the is a lot of
areas you could fall into copyright at.
The Copyright law originated in the United Kingdom in 1988 covering
intellectual right and the work which it applied to. The law gives the
creators production of;

Films
Broadcasts, films and video productions.
Published Editions
Magazines and papers.
Artistic work
Photography, sculptures, drawings and paintings
Drama productions
Dances and scripted plays
Literacy and writings
Computer programs, song lyrics, Scripts, articles and leaflets.
Sound recordings and musicals
Musicals and Literacy that has been recorded.

The right to cover their products from copying, editing, publishing, lending
and giving out to the public and also selling. Most people who create their
DVD menu product are registered as an author of their product so they
can then be protected by the International Conventions which applies in
most countries and which is subjected to national law.
People are still allowed to publish something very similar and based
around the same topic as long as they do not directly copy any of the
following from your piece of work;

Titles.
Sentences / parts of Text.
Logos (even if in different colours).

In some cases, there are Fair Dealing terms which allows you to almost
commit copy right but this usually occurs for personal and educational
use. These are the acts which copyright is allowed in;

Research and study purposes.

Performance and lending out for educational use.
New reporting and Criticism.

Copies and lending to and from Libraries

Court proceedings and parliamentary purposes.

Ethical
When partaking in any kind of Media production you need to be
aware of the phrases and topic you talk about as it could people
from different backgrounds for example. The Ethical Considerations
means that in any type of Media production created there can be no
remarks of discrimination against people Race, Religion, Sexuality
and Gender. Every company making a DVD menu product knows
about the ethical considerations but sometimes companies try and
push these boundaries, not writing directly at one Race or Disability
for example but still quite discriminating in some ways.
If companies break the Ethical consideration rules this will not just
give the specific company a bad reputation, the people which the
article is discriminating will stand up and speak out, often causing
rallies and protests etc. The worst things that have happened when
a Multimedia company has broken the ethical considerations law is
the authors / writers of the article or product will be targeted with
hate offenses, which also gets a lot of Media attention.
One place people like to avoid these rules is on the internet, on the
internet people can freely publish any type of multimedia product
globally. If anyone across the globe is effected by a companies
publish on the internet they could go with it and try and sue the
company for the discrimination. Here are the full details on the ethic
consideration you need to tying a stay abide to;
Sexuality (Heterosexual and Homosexuals).
Nationality (e.g. Asian / other countries).
Race (white, black or Asian).
Disability (e.g. Down syndrome).
Gender (Male or Female).
It is key that when producing my DVD menu product that all these
groups of people are taken into consideration, If I do go against any
of these my product will not be eligible for publish until it has been
either be removed or changed.
When creating my product, I will protect myself from copyright
offenses by using non copyrighted sounds, music or images from
the internet. Also when downloading videos from the web I need to
make sure that I have permission to do so in the description of the
video. I also need to make sure that that none of these acts are
broken in the making of my product;

Not allowed to use any parts of other peoples DVD menu

product for uses towards my own unless I have permission.

No discrimination statements towards one group of

individuals.
Cannot use images, videos or audio tapes of a person unless
you have permission from the actually person of the file.
No nudity, violence or gore in any of the images, videos /
animations used in my product.
I will now explain the codes of practise that I need to be aware
of to allow my multimedia product publishable.

Ofcom
The Office of Communications, more popularly known as Ofcom is the
governments regulation authority for the telecom and broadcasting
industries for the United Kingdom (UK).
Ofcoms main duty is to protect the public from material which will be
considered discriminating / harmful to a certain group of people. Ofcom
has the powers to do this as they have a huge control over the Multimedia
products being published into the UK. Ofcom was created in 2002 and was
given its full authority in 2003.

ASA
Advertising standards authority, (ASA) is the regulator for all
advertising across the UK for all platforms of the media. The work we
create will be sent to the ASA and checking our multimedia product to
check any discriminating advertisements!

BIMA
British Interactive Media Association is an industry representing the Digital
Media for the UK. BIMA support the British digital industry, reward those in
the digital media industry for the productions and share knowledge with
people who
are also a part
of the digital
media industry.

PCC
The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) is a voluntary authority for the
British Printing, Magazines and newspaper publishing. The PCC has no
legal powers and is funded from magazine and newspaper company
contributions.

VEVO
Whenever you watch a video on VEVO there is always an age rating on
show so people know the suitable ages to be watching that video and also
if that specific has any copyright at all within it then it will be flagged for
Copyright and will most probably be remove or edited so there is no copy
righted footage in it.

I have rated the songs and music video with in my DVD menu at 18. I
would rate them at 18 because many of the lyrics in most of the songs
have to be blocked out because of being potentially offensive language.
And also some of the content in some of the music videos would only be
suitable for an older
audience such as violence.