Week 19: Research into Final Product: Legal and Ethical Considerations

Research into Final Product

Legal and Ethical Considerations

As a group we were researching into the final product, our advertisement idea and we each took a part to research into and the features I researched into were The Legal and Ethical Considerations, below shows the Legal and Ethical Considerations which I have written up from my research.

When creating a television advert there are many different aspects linked with the Legal and Ethical considerations before the advert is created, therefore I have  researched into the different issues surrounding the production of a television advert and the following are some of the issues which need to be considered.

Copyright -Invasion of Privacy:  Copyright is very important within Television adverts, and if the advert itself is not copyright protected anyone will be able to claim the advert as their own. If someone was able to do this they can take credit for all the work which you put into creating the advert, and even more, they will take credit for the original footage and the advert idea. Therefore if you copyright the advert you will not have problem if someone tries to use it without your permission, because they can have a fine of at least £16,000 to pay. Therefore if someone does use your advert or any part of the advert they will be fined, so by copyrighting the advert you are guaranteed that you will still have the rights to the advert and if anyone wishes to use a part of your advert they will have to ask your permission and if they don’t they have to pay a fine.  

Copyright Materials: These materials include Music, Photos and Existing Video Footage, as these materials are most probably copyright protected you need to get permission to use any of these existing materials. As if you do use existing material such as existing video footage and claim it as your own through the advert you are breaking the law and you can be fined, which would be from £16,000. Therefore this shows that it works I reverse, if someone claims your copyrighted advert as their own they will be fined and if you take existing materials without asking permission you will be the one who has to pay the fine. This shows that by copyrighting materials you are guaranteed the materials will still belong to you, so if someone does want to use your advert or any part of your advert they would have to ask you permission and technically without your permission they are not allowed to use it. Being allowed to use an existing piece of material does not usually cost if the footage is for non-commercial television use, otherwise you would have to pay and the money will go to the copyright holder.

Location: To use certain locations you need to get something called a ‘Location Release’, this is when you have to ask permission to use a certain location, for example you would not be able to go into a famous retail shop and start filming a television advert, as you have not asked permission to be able to film in that certain place. Therefore in advance you would need to ask permission to use the certain location and you may also need to fill out the Location Release Form, as this verifies your permission to use the certain location. This is another aspect which our group is going to have to consider when we arrange the location which we want to film our advert in; otherwise we may not have a location to film in. (An example of a Location Release Form is attached to this document)

Talent Release: If you are considering using a well recognised person in the television advert, this may be someone who is famous or appeared on other television adverts, they will need to sign a Talent Release Form as this verifies the reason and the fact that they are appearing within your television advert. For example, if you knew a famous singer such as Pixie Lott in your television advert you would ask them to sign the talent release form, the reason why this is also done is because once they have signed the form they have agreed to the footage of them being shown and they will not be able to say they don’t want certain footage shown after they have signed the form. Therefore this would be an aspect which would have to be considered if we were going to use a recognizable person within our television advert.

Original Music and Existing Music Material:

Original Music: By using original music within a television advert you do not have to worry about having to get permission to use a copyrighted piece of music, which will save time as getting permission to use existing materials and then gathering the materials may take time. Also, by creating an original piece of music for the television advert this is less expensive than granting permission to use an existing piece of music, and creating a simple piece of original music is quite cheap. Therefore this is one of the best options if your production is on tight budget, as there are programmes which can easily help you create a short piece of music for the advert and the best thing is that the original piece of music will be exactly what the advert wants and will link in with the advert very well.

Existing Music Material: Within a television advert if you were considering using an existing piece of music, however well known it is you must be able to get and have permission from the copyright holder to be able to use the music. Also, using existing music within a television advert will also cost, as this music has been used in the past using it within your advert is not the first time it has ever been heard, therefore people are able to sell the rights to use the music in one advert and this could cost a lot, depending on the music and the product which it is being put into. Through researching the existing music material rights this is another point which we will need to consider as a group when it comes to deciding what music will be used within our advert and how we would contact the copyright holder of the music.

Ethical Considerations: When creating a television advert you need to consider many different aspects within Ethical Considerations, for example, through the advert you do not want to send a ‘wrong’ message across to the audience, as in the past many adverts have been axed from the TV because their advert did not send the right message to the audience. Other ethical considerations include the fact that you should not offend anyone within the television advert as if your final advert does seem to offend people and comes across as it offends people it may not be able to be shown on television because of this. Therefore when our group is in the pre-production stage we must consider the ethical aspects as we do not want to offend anyone or send the wrong message to our audience.