Unit 1 Task 5

 Legislation and the Creative Industries

No matter how well your business is marketed and no well how well-planned your company is, it doesn't matter if your company doesn't follow the law. There are a number of different laws that your company has to follow in order to ensure that it doesn't break any form of legislation or become unethical. For creative companies in particular, there're quite a few rules regarding the creative products that you put out, whether they be pieces of art, photographs or models.

Intellectual Property

To begin with, we have to go over the definition of Intellectual Property. Put simply, intellectual property is something that was created by the mind. This includes a wide array of creative products such as pieces of written literature, art, designs, unique inventions and so on. If your creation is something that you personally came up with in your own mind creatively, then it more than likely falls under the umbrella of Intellectual Property. With your work being branded as intellectual property, or IP, there's a number of legislations in place that can both protect your work and produce guidelines that you must follow when selling the work.

Copyright

In order to protect your intellectual property from being stolen by others wishing to make a quick buck, any original IPs are protected by copyright laws. The specifics vary from country to country, but generally the law gives the owner of the IP the exclusive rights to distribute, make copies or generally make a profit from the IP. This means that someone can't claim your hard work as their own and sell it to the public, stealing all of your effort for their own personal gain. Of course, this works both ways; the copyright law also prevents you from stealing the intellectual property of others for your own business, meaning it's important to ensure all of your products don't infringe on the copyright of any potentially similar products in the market. 

For the UK specifically, the amount of time that your work is protected before falling into the public domain depends on the type of creative work being produced. For written, artistic or musical works, your products will be protected by copyright for the entirety of your lifespan as well as for 70 years after you die. For films, they are protected under copyright for 70 years after the combined deaths of the director, screenwriter and composer.

Trademarks

A Trademark is a variation of the Intellectual Property I mentioned earlier, focusing more specifically on "a recognizable sign, design or expression". In other words, a Trademark is something that is easily recognisable and unique to a specific business/individual that seperates their brand from their competitors. Trademarks are usually indicated by a small symbol next to the trademarked symbol/phrase, using either ™ or ®. 

Some examples of recognizable Trademarks include company logos such as the McDonalds golden arches and the Apple's signature Apple silhouette, company slogans such as McDonalds' "i'm lovin' it" and even brand names themselves such as McDonalds, IKEA and more.

Talent Releases

Moving away from universal laws that affect all aspects of the creative industries, we now get to legislation that affects specific aspects of the creative industries. More specifically, the film industry. When filming anything that you intend to promote and produce starring actors, you have to ensure that you have their documented permission and information in paperwork to provide proof of their legal involvement. This is done through a document called a Talent Release.

A Talent Release is a page-long document featuring a headshot of the talent in question along with information such as their name, address, phone number and potentially email address as well. Alongside this information, the talent release will include a signed statement from the talent indicating their involvement in the production and that the cinematographer has their permission to film them. Without a talent release, a filmmaker will be unable to release their film as they will either not have proof of their talent's willing permission to be in the film or, in a worst case scenario, will not actually have their permission to use their likeness in the film.

A sub-type of a Talent Release is a Minor Talent Release, used when a minor has to star in a film/TV production. This version of the Talent Release is almost identical to the previous one, except it features a signature and statement from the talent's legal guardian rather than themselves.

Location Releases

Not only do you need the documented permission of the talent starring within a TV production, but you also need the documented permission of whoever owns where you plan to film. Unless you're filming somewhere that you own, you'll have to ensure that you have permission from the landowner to film on their private premises. This is done through a similar form to the Talent Release called a Location Release.

Like the Talent Release, the Location Release is a page-long document including a statement from the owner of the property detailing their given permission for the filmmaker to use their property to film. This also usually includes a list of what this permission includes, ranging from prop usage to bringing talent on-property. After this statement is a signature from both the filmmaker and the property-owner, along with phone numbers and the date of the signature. Without a Location Release, you have no proof that you were given permission to film on the location you desired, therefore not following legislation.

Filming/Performing in Public

While a Location Release may be necessary when filming on an owned private property, rules differ when it comes to filming on any kind of public property. In general, the law in the UK states that "members of the public and the media do not need a permit to film or photograph in public places." The law additionally states that the police "have no power to stop them filming or photographing incidents or police personnel". Therefore, this law clearly states that there's nothing to stop a filmmaker from filming a public area without obtaining any kind of permit or documented permission. However, the IAC suggests that filmmakers should follow instructions given by police if they are told to stop filming, as it's possible there's a reason to prevent filming. While one does not need a permit to film public places, this doesn't mean a filmmaker can film specific individuals in a public location willy-nilly. Action can be taken if someone is filmed in public without their consent following privacy laws within the UK. Therefore, a filmmaker will need to take care when filming in public to either only film a location at large or to obtain the permission of individuals who may stand out as lone people within a public place.

Things differ for performing music in public, depending on the actual music being played. If the music you're playing in public is your own original piece, I haven't found any legislation stating you need express permissions or permits to perform it. If you've written the music entirely yourself, you can perform in a public space without permits or permissions. However, things change if you're attempting to perform something in public that you haven't written. If you want to perform a trademarked/copyrighted piece of music in public, you need to obtain a public performance license. This license gives you permission from the copyright holder of the original music to perform the song in public. Without this license, you cannot perform a copyrighted piece in public as that would be infringing on Copyright law mentioned above.

Child Labour Laws

When doing things for the creative industries, it's entirely possible that you'll have to involve a child in the proceedings. Whether this is to get younger vocals in a song where a child's voice would be essential or to involve a child in a film or TV production, it's inevitable that some creative productions will require the use of children. However, a filmmaker can't just take a kid and film them at their own discretion. This would go against Child Labour Laws enacted in the UK in 1933. This legislation prevents anyone under the age of 14 from being employed in any sector of work, including the creative industries. So how does a filmmaker involve a child in their productions without breaking Child Labour laws?

Luckily, there's a special exception for this issue when involving film. A child will be able to take part in a film or TV production providing they have a Performance license. According to the Government's official website, a child will need a license if they're under 14 and taking part in "films, plays, concerts or other public performances" or "any sporting events or modelling assignments where the child is paid". For these instances, a child can be provided with a license to allow them to take part in the production without breaking child labour laws. Additionally, the involved child must have some kind of supervision at all times when not actively filming. If this supervision isn't provided from their legal guardian or school teacher, then it must be from a "chaperone approved by the council".

Public Liability Insurance

When filming or doing any kind of creative performance in public, there's always the risk of potentially injuring or damaging the property of a member of the public. You can obtain consent of the public and licenses to perform all you want, but if you accidentally harm someone in the process of your production, they won't save you from being sued. This is why Public Liability Insurance exists.

Public Liability Insurance is a specific type of insurance meant for businesses of any size. It's meant for a variety of industries, but has a lot of overlap and involvement with the creative industries due to their need to involve the public. Public Liability Insurance protects you "if a client or member of the public claims they have been injured, or their property damaged, because of your business activities." For the creative industries, this would mean protecting you if the process of your production/play/performance injures someone such as having someone trip over a cable or being injured by lighting equipment. This insurance protects businesses from claims involving these kind of issues, and additionally can cover the costs of expenses involved in any legal proceedings.

GDPR

When it comes to following legislation within the creative industries, laws that affect in-person productions aren't the only thing to worry about. There are also laws that affect sectors of the creative industry focused more on the digital world. More specifically, there's the GDPR - the General Data Protection Regulation.

The GDPR is a piece of legislation put into place recently in 2018, aiming to help ensure data privacy is secured throughout the entirety of the EU, even including businesses outside the EU aiming to involve the data of customers within the EU. In other words, the GDPR is "the world's strongest set of data protection rules". The GDPR has seven key principles: lawfulness, fairness and transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, accuracy, storage limitation, integrity and confidentiality, and accountability. According to my sources, the majority of these regulations were already enforced under the previous data protection rules, with the only new addition being Accountability.

The Accountability section of the GDPR ensures that companies are able to prove they're aiming to comply with the rest of the regulations stated by the GDPR. This can take multiple different forms, ranging from documenting how your business handles data and what steps are taken to protect private information to training staff in data handling processes and generally understanding data protection. This aspect of the GDPR aims to ensure that businesses hold accountability for their actions and how they handle the private data of their customers/clients.

The GDPR can have an impact on the creative industries due to the many businesses within the industry that focus on digital interaction between business owner and clients. When running an online store or anything digital, it's inevitable that the business owner will have to process the data of the people coming through the website for any kind of purposes, such as analytical purposes. Therefore, someone operating a creative business digitally will need to ensure they follow the GDPR.

The Competition Act 1998

Another piece of important legislation that could impact the creative industries is the Competition Act of 1998, aiming to "identify and [deal] with restrictive business practices and abuse of a dominant market position". More specifically, the Competition Act 1998 prohibits any kind of deals between businesses in the UK that could "distort, restrict or prevent competition". Any deals that occur between different businesses that could potentially limit output or fix prices in the market would go against this piece of legislation. Additionally, the Act prohibits a business with an advantageous position in the market from abusing this position by doing things such as excessively pricing their services, refusing to increase supply or discriminating how they price things in order to restrict competition.

This act obviously impacts the creative industries as creative businesses are just as liable as any other business to engage in shady deals if they feel that it may benefit them and restrict the ways that their competition can grow. This legislation aims to prevent these businesses from abusing their position and further restricting any competition they have, giving all businesses a fair chance to grow.

The Enterprise Act 2002

The final piece of legislation to consider is a slightly more recent one compared to the Competition Act 1998. This would be the Enterprise Act of 2002. Similarly to the previous act, the Enterprise Act aimed to make changes to competition law within the UK regarding mergers.

The Enterprise Act had five main objectives regarding competition policy. These objectives were:

• Make all Competition Decisions through independent bodies
• Root out forms of anti-competitive behav
  iour
• Create a deterrent effect (regarding cartels)
• Redress injured parties in distortions of competition
• Raise the profile of competition policy in the UK.

More specifically, the Act gave the Office of Fair Trading independence from the rest of the government and gave to it new powers, including the ability to search businesses that may be involved in a 'prohibited merger'. According to Wikipedia, a prohibited merger is any merger that "will affect the media to the detriment of the public, national security or if one of the firms is a government contractor". Additionally, the Act aimed to deter business directors from forming any kind of cartels by threatening them with jail terms of up to 5 years for creating said Cartels.

The Enterprise Act 2002 affects businesses within the creative industry due to their statuses as businesses and for similar reasons to the previous legislation. Any business in the creative industry, no matter their type, may feel the need to form an illegitimate merger with another company or potentially form a cartel if they feel like they're not in an advantageous position (or if they are and want to snuff their competition further).