Legal Restraints

The entertainment industries can be legal minefields and while the legal issues that face documentary film makers may not be too different from other industries, people who produce documentaries may sometimes rely on existing copyrighted materials. This is one examples of legal restraints I may face when making my documentary.


Here is a list of laws and rules that I have to follow when making a documentary. When researching into legal restraints I looked at the Society of Editors Code of Practice. This is a relevant practice that all journalists and reporters must follow.


1. Accuracy
I must take care not to produce any work that is inaccurate, misleading or distorted. Any inaccuracy once recognised must be corrected promptly, and an apology must be published. I should also distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.


2. Privacy
Everyone is entitled to respect for his / her private and family life, including digital communications.  It is unacceptable to photograph or video individuals without consent. 


3. Harassment
You must not engage in intimidation, harassment of persistent pursuit. You must not persist in telephoning, questioning, pursuing or photographing individuals once asked to desist; nor remain on their property when asked to leave and must not follow them. 


4. Intrusion into grief or shock
In cases involving personal grief or shock, enquiries and approaches must be made with sympathy and discretion and publication made sensitively. 


5. Hospitals 
You must identify yourself and obtain permission from a responsible executive before entering non-public areas of hospitals or similar institutions to pursue enquiries. The restrictions on intruding into privacy are particularly relevant to enquiries about individuals in hospitals or similar institutions. 


6. Clandestine devices and subterfuge
You must not seek to obtain or publish material acquired by using hidden camera or clandestine listening devices; or by intercepting private or mobile telephone calls, messages or emails, or by unauthorised removal of documents or photographs. Engaging in misinterpretation or subterfuge, can generally be justified only in the public interest and then only when the material cannot be obtained by other means. 


7. Discrimination
You must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individuals race, colour, religion, gender, sex, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability, unless genuinely relevant to a story. 


8. Confidential sources 
You have a moral obligation to protect confidential sources or information.