Report – De-risk

Posted on: Saturday 14 July 2018 5:29pm

This session, hosted by Gareth Cotton from La Playa, broke down the easiest ways to protect against copyright infringement, as well as intellectual property and libel issues.

Takeaway

This session covered:

·     Risks companies face on a daily basis

·     Legal implications

·     Insurance of these risks

Detail

Sunny Kang from Nine Lives Media explained some of the challenging risks he had to consider and deal with on a number of projects.

The first project discussed was ‘Learning to Fly’, a documentary about air cadets flying for the first time. Around the time of filming there was a near collision in which a photographer and pilot were flying and the camera fell out of the photographer’s hands, causing the pilot to make an emergency landing. Working with the RAF and manufacturer highlighted various liability issues and to de-risk the situation they made the decision that it would be best to strap the camera to the pilot’s wrist. This allowed the team to get around some of the liability issues and still achieve the desired results.

Sunny also discussed ‘Big Elephant Rescue’, a documentary about a girl taking a family of elephants rescued from a circus and back to Thailand. He explained how planning and preparation were vital. Risks to be considered were: filming abroad, working with dangerous animals and animal welfare, working with children, risky weather conditions and equipment damage, to name but a few. According to Sunny, “it was the longest risk assessment I or the company had ever worked on!”

Sunny explained that it is important to try to prepare and plan for all eventualities, no matter how big or small!

David Burgess, partner at Reviewed and Cleared, went on to explain the main legal implications associated with privacy, copyright and defamation – the most common issues in production.

He said that when considering privacy it is important to consider – are we revealing details of someone’s private life without permission? He stressed the importance of seeking consent, or being able to prove that sharing such details would be in the interest of the public.

In regards to defamation, he explained that you are at risk if content contains statements about individuals or companies which cause harm to their reputations. He explained that for example, including innuendo can be damaging and he also said that ‘allegedly’ is not a magic word and including it will not let you off the hook.

In terms of copyright, he explained that infringement is an increasing problem, especially amongst younger generations as content is easily accessible.  He said that just because content has 20,000 hits on YouTube it does not mean you can use it. David explained how copyright protects literary and artist works including photos, videos and music. He stressed that, “everything is owned by somebody”.

Finally, Tracey McCreath from La Playa went on to discuss the different insurance policies used to cover these risks.

These included:

• Risks inside your business – Commercial Producers Indemnity
• Risks from outside your business – Media Professional Indemnity
• Social media risk – Personal Media Protection Insurance

Tracey’s top tip was to check your contractual obligations and get a specialist broker and clearance lawyer on board with your project at the earliest opportunity.

Written by Jo Aslett