Legal and Ethical Issues

Before the magazine can be published and consumed by the reader there are several legal and

ethical issues that must be checked beforehand. Two of the main bodies that handle the regulations

of media publishing are the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) – {previously known as

the Press Complaints Commission} and the Advertisement Standards Authority (ASA), these are both

based in the UK. Some of the main legal areas include; copyright, the right to privacy, seditious libel

and criminal libel. Ethical issues include; discrimination, children and accuracy.

Copyright Issues:

This is a form of intellectual property; it enables the creator of content the power to exclusive rights

of their work. Therefore if copyright is broken they will be compensated for their intellectual effort.

When publishing the magazine we need to guarantee that none of the content we publish does not

breach any copyright laws. If we do plan to use copyrighted content, such as an image we must seek

permission from the original creator.

Before creating the magazine there are several legal areas that need to be researched. When using

content within the magazine that was not created by us we have to contact the original creators and

seek permission to use such content, if this is not done the magazine can come under criticism and

it is highly possible that we will face a fine. Additionally with the copyright law we will have to prove

that we have permission from the content creator that was can use their material.

PCC/IPSO – What needs to be considered?

When producing the music magazine I will have to consider the editors code, this can be found on

the official Press Complaints Commission website. The first thing the editors code states is that those

who contribute to making the magazine “have a duty to maintain the highest professional

standards”, this connotes that all areas of the magazine including the content and the way we

handle subscribers information need to be dealt with in the most specialised way. This sets a

professional benchmark, guaranteeing our readers quality, reliability and experience.

Additional information that is stated in the Editors Code that must be applied to the magazines

development is having to applying the code, including all highlighted areas to both print and online

based material. This means that all editors will have to check through information that we publish to

make sure we are within the guidelines of the code.

We also have the responsibility to dealing with complaints directly from the Press Complaints

Commission; these can be about copyright issues or privacy breaches.

Intellectual Property:

Another area that needs to be considered is including intellectual property within the magazine.

Intellectual property is protected by patents, copyright and trademarks which permit people to earn

recognition or financial benefit from what they invent or create. An example of this would be using

company logos such as Facebook and Twitter. The magazine would have to gain certain permissions

to use the logos. With some companies a financial agreement might have to be mad. Therefore if we

wanted to write an article on a specific festival, the company that runs the festival will ask to have an

advertising feature or competition that will gain them a profit from giving their permission to appear

in the magazine.

Safe Working Practices - Image and Software “Safe working practices”

When taking and editing the images for the front cover and double page spread I had to take into

consideration risk assessment. This meant that I had to look at all individual ‘safe working practices’

and how they could affect the final images.

Image Risk Assessment

Before taking the images I needed to make sure that the artist gave their full permission to being

photographed and the image being published both online and in print media. I found that the best

way to gain permission was to send an email to the artist describing what they have to wear, the

location and time of the shoot. I also attached a permission form which they had to sign and date

and send back. By gaining permission through this method the magazine has declared proof of a

signed document; this means that if there are any future legal difficulties it would not be the

magazine at fault.

When scouting the location for the images several area checks had to take place. This risk

assessment had to be conducted to guarantee both the artist and the people who are taking the

images are safe. Areas that should be looked at are possible hazards such as uneven ground levels,

running water, heights and weather conditions.

Software Risk Assessment

When editing the images that I had taken on location I wanted to keep a professional high image

quality. This meant that I looked into different ways of guaranteeing that the final images would

have no evidence of resizing pixilation. I found that the most useful method of resizing images whilst

also keeping the original high quality pixel size was to use the ‘Transform Tool’ on Adobe Photoshop.

This technique is when resizing the image to hold down the ‘Shift’ key on the keyboard. The purpose

of this tool is to keep the dimensions of the image the same so they are not stretched and distorted

which can in turn affect the pixel quality.

To maintain consistency throughout V Magazine I wanted to make sure that all of the colours were

the same. On Adobe Photoshop is the ‘Eyedropper Tool’ that helps choose and find a colour of an

object, and then you have the opportunity to save the chosen colour into a swatches palette. This

meant that every time I created a new text or object to be inserted into the magazine pages, to find

the magazines colour I had to go into my ‘Saved Swatches’ palette and choose the colour I wanted to

use. This sped up the colour choosing process as well as keeping a professional standard for the

magazine.