LEGAL AND ETHICAL
Legality means an act is in accordance with the law while ethics is about concepts of right and wrong behaviour. Some actions may be legal but in some people's opinion not ethical. For example, testing medicines on an animal is legal in many countries but some people believe it is not ethical.
Human being is not just living being who is breathing, eating and reproducing, but they are more than that. they think, have values, have etiquettes. A person isn not only an individual but also a part of community or society due to which they are adherent to some authority. Anything being legal is directly associated with procedure, equipment, practices , languages, cultures and other concepts pertaining to the system of governmental law.
Being ethical is totally an individual's choice. Ethical acts or behaviour is based on principles and values of people. It is more about being right or wrong in terms of character. Ethical standard is an abstract from nature. it is a code of conduct for society agreed by society but not governmental .
The ethical standard is primarily based on individuals then on a societal level. Nobody can enforce ethics on someone, rather it comes from introspection.
Examples of Legal issues:
Authorship and ownership (Intellectual property right)
The copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) defines the author of a work as the person wh created it. The author as creator is not always the owner of a work.
Intellectual property right, very broadly, are rights granted to creators and owners of works that are the result of human intellectual creativity. They include; Trade marks which distinguish goods and services. Also we could say rights given to persons over the creations of their minds. They usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creation for a certain period of time.
We have four types of Intellectual property for business which are ; Copyrights, patents, trademarks and Trade secrets.
ISSUES
If you’ve seen The Hangover Part II, you will know that one of the main characters, Stu Price, wakes up after a night out in Bangkok with a tattoo on his face. This tattoo was exactly the same as Mike Tyson’s and alluded to his cameo appearance in the original, The Hangover, film.
Warner Bros. Entertainment would not have been expecting the original tattoo artist, S. Victor Whitmill to bring a copyright infringement suit against them as they tried to showcase this famous tattoo. Whitmill, who did Tyson’s tattoo in 2003 and subsequenctly obtained copyright which covered “artwork on 3-D”, saw the copy of the tattoo as copyright infringement. Warner Bros. claimed that they used the tattoo as a parody which constitutes fair use.
This dispute was resolved in an agreement of undisclosed terms but a judge in the Eastern District of Missouri did rule that Whitmill had a case to argue.
Libel lawsuit
In 2017, three New Hampshire businessmen brought a defamation lawsuit up against Michael Gill, the owner of a New Hampshire mortgage company. It was Gill who put up billboards accusing the three businessmen of criminal activity. The billboards accused the three businessmen – an auto dealer CEO, banker, and developer – of participating in drug dealing and extortion. The jury found the allegations baseless and awarded just over $274 million in damages to the three businessmen.
Slander lawsuit
Steve Wynn, a US casino owner, successfully sued “Girls Gone Wild” creator Joe Francis for $20 million in damages. The lawsuit was based on accusations made by Francis about Wynn supposedly making death threats to him. The jurors found no basis for these accusations and awarded Wynn the large monetary value based on damages to both his personal and business reputation.
Equality Act 2010: Accessibility
The Equality Act is a law which protects you from discrimination. It means that discrimination or unfair treatment on the basis of certain personal characteristics, such as age, is now against the law in almost all cases.
The Equality Act applies to discrimination based on:
- Age
- Race
- Sex
- Gender reassignment
- Disability
- Religion or belief
- Sexual orientation
- Marriage or civil partnership
- Pregnancy and maternity
An 89-year-old NHS secretary, Eileen Jolly, became the oldest person in the UK to win an age discrimination claim. Her superiors at Reading’s Royal Berkshire Hospital fired her, claiming that she was stuck in her “old secretarial ways” and that she had demonstrated a “catastrophic failure in performance”.
In a nutshell, Eileen was fired for being unable to use a modern computer. However, the employment tribunal found that “there was evidence of the claimant’s training having been inadequate, incomplete and ‘on the job’ training was ad hoc and not directed”. While Eileen never got her job back, she did end up £200,000 richer!
Obscene Publication act
The obscene publication Act 1959 applies to television and covers material which is obscene, whether it is in a person's possession or it is published or broadcast. The definition of obscene is "likely to deprave and corrupt " the audience for which it is intended and includes not only sexually explicit material but material relating to violence and drug taking. This offence is more likely to apply to research material than material actually transmitted because of the stricter tests relating to harm and offence under the communication Act 2003.
ISSUES
A Sutton, Massachusetts, man was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling for the District of Massachusetts, Acting Special Agent in Charge David Magdycz of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations in Boston, and Sutton Police Chief Dennis J. Towle made the announcement.
Oliver Smith, 45, a citizen of Sweden and the United States, was charged by criminal complaint with possession of child pornography.According to the criminal complaint, on Nov. 15, 2020, after receiving investigative information from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Swedish law enforcement authorities, and conducting its own investigation, federal agents executed a search warrant at Smith’s Sutton residence and seized several devices. A preliminary forensic review of the seized devices revealed images and videos of child pornography. During an interview with federal agents, Smith admitted that he had downloaded child pornography upon his return to the United States from Sweden.
Jessica Urban of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristen Noto of the District of Massachusetts' Worcester Branch Office are prosecuting the case. The case is being investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations in Boston, and the Sutton Police Department.
Computer Misuse Act
The offence is made out once a defendant has caused a computer, which would include his own computer, to perform a function with intent to secure access. This includes mere physical contact with a computer and the scrutiny of data without any interaction with a computer( thus the reading of confidential computer output, the reading of data displayed on the screen , or computer eavesdropping.
The access to the program or data which the accused intends to secure must be 'unauthorised ' access.
ISSUES
Rot VRS Callum Gentry Brown at the Chelmsford Crown court jan 26, 2001. Teenager hacker mail- bombed his employer Ace 24 Consultancy and copied 55 folders and 2,926 files. He was sentenced to nine months suspended for two years and 200 hours of unpaid work.
Contracts
A contract is a legally binding promise ( written or oral) by one party to fulfil and obligation to another party in return for consideration. A basic contact must comprise four elements ; offer, acceptance, consideration and intent to create legal relations.
ISSUES
Blackpool Aero Club vas Blackpool Borough Council (1990)
BBC invited tenders to operate an airport, to be submitted by noon on a fixed date. The plaintiffs tender was delivered by hand and put in the Town Hall letter box at 11am. However, the tender was recorded as having been received late and was not considered. The club sued for breach of an alleged warranty that a tender received by the deadline would be considered. The judge awarded damages for breach of contract and negligence. The council’s appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
ETHICAL
Relationships with Client
The ethical foundation of a company is important to the way a company is perceived by customers and peers alike. It is also a source of pride and self-respect for the company itself. While appropriate business ethics may be subjective, depending upon the context of your business, some basic principles of ethics will apply regardless of the type of business you operate. Ethical business relationships are less often a matter of legal compliance as they are of conscious self-governance by individuals and businesses.
Ethical relationships concerning your company's interaction with customers can have a direct impact on the success of your company. Ethical customer relationships should include honesty with customers, delivering a good product or service and backing the product or service. A company policy that encourages positive relationships with customers can help position your company as a trusted one. While unethical behavior, such as making false claims, may gain you immediate customers, this same behavior will lose those customers for you in the long run.
BLASPHEMY
Blasphemy, as defined in some religions or religion based on laws, is an insult that shows contempt, disrespect or lack of reverence concerning a deity, a sacred object or something considered inviolable. Different kinds of religion have different types of blasphemy . take for instance the christains considered damaging a church, worshipping the devil blasphemous while the muslims considered having a pictorial image of Mohammad blasphemous .
REPRESENTATION
Media representations are the ways in which the media portrays particular groups, communities, experiences, ideas, or topics from a particular ideological or value perspective. They aren’t always completely accurate, and they can be said to be “re-presentations” which can sometimes go as far as to create a new reality. A clear example of media representation can be found in beer advertisements when they generally make out like drinking beer is a key component of a party in order to make it fun, because by doing this they’re creating the connotation that it’s their product that makes the party fun, and this then helps them to promote their product. Another example is the Disney Corporation, one of the major producers of film and television, who represent stories and fairy tales for children primarily in terms of White, Western, middle- class values. Disney Land and Disney world even go so far as to create a new ‘land’ through representation.
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