P4: Describe how the proposal conforms to meet all legal and regulatory requirements.
How the proposal meets all the legal requirements
Copyright and intellectual property As the app will feature music videos, permission will have to be secured so that it can be put on the app.
PRS and PPL - These are organisations that organise copyright for music through agreements wth the creators and people who want to use the music. This is a more in depth explanation of what they are I found on the PRS for music website.
It will be fine to use other people's music for the app as long as the app has an agreement with the creator. This agreement will state that that, as the app is only linking to the music videos though YouTube, it is actually promotion for music creator. The app has to acknowledge who the artist is and the record company, which has the royalties and copyright. If that is done then everything will be in line with the copyright and intellectual property laws.
Data protection and GDPR If my app did end up containing a 'sign up' segment where customers will have to enter their details, I will have to consider the Data Protection Act (1988), which says that it is illegal to misuse someones personal information like phone numbers, emails and sell them onto other users. So, if my app did contain that, we would have to encrypt that data or keep it confidential to be in line with the Data Protection Act.
GDPR is General Data Protection Regulation, which has been introduced recently (comes into effect on 25th May 2018, only in the EU) to change collection and processing of personal information of individuals by websites and companies. It has been put there to further protect private information and data of individuals. This has led to many social media companies having to make changes due to the new legal framework GDPR has put into place.
Here are some of the social medias and what they have changed to be in line with GDPR
Twitter - All tweets are public and viewable by anyone and Twitter have made sure that is known. However, they also promote the fact that they do give ways to privately communicate through protected tweets and direct messaging. - You can also use Twitter through a pseudonym to be more private. - They have made it clear that they receive what device you're on and your IP address, even if you're just looking at tweets. - They acknowledge that they use your information to give your feed more relevant tweets, people to follow, events and more. - They give users full control of privacy in the 'settings' part of the profile.
Facebook - Facebook will prompt users to say whether they want to see targeted ads based on the political, religious, and relationship information they’ve shared on their profiles or data collected by Facebook’s partners. - They also make it simple for people to delete information which they don’t want shared. - Facebook will prompt users to agree to its terms of service and data policy, which was updated in May 2018. - People under the age of 18 will have some special features, including requiring parent or guardian permission for those between the ages of 13 and 15 to see targeted ads in some European countries, and restricted sharing and less personalized ads. Later in 2018, Facebook will introduce a new “global online resource center” for teens.
As the app is only showing people where to get the clothes and linking them to the clothing website, such as ASOS, H&M or Topshop, it won't need anyone's personal info or bank details, so won't have any data that will have to be protected. The only data it might have is what clothing certain people are buying so it can recommend more choices in the future, so the app should have a private policy to outline what it will be using this data for. Maybe in the future, the app could introduce a 'membership' programme where it got e-mails, phone numbers and other personal info, that it would also have to protect and outline in the privacy policy.
How the proposal meets all the regulatory requirements
Regulatory Bodies
.Here are a selection of regulatory bodies and how the app will adhere to their rules.
OFCOM OFCOM stands for the Office of Communications and is the communications regulator in the UK. It deals with lots of media communications such as TV, Radio and Video on Demand services. This is important to our app because we are thinking of advertising and marketing the app on TV and Radio, so need to think about what is allowed and what to stay away from.
These are some of the OFCOM's regulations which need to be considered.
Protecting under 18s needs to be considered because when advertising to TV, we need to make sure not to include any harsh or offensive language, violence or drugs. This is especially important, since our target audience is the15 - 25 age range, so we will be advertising before the watershed because that's when most of the target audience will be watching. This means that we definitely need to take protecting the under-eighteens into account.
As the app is targeted at people aged 15 - 25, I have to make sure that I am catering to that young audience who are under age. This means that for the music videos that I will link to the app, I have to make sure that they are censored and contain no violence or offensive/harsh language because young people can't be exposed to that.
When advertising, we need to take Harm and Offence into account, because the advertising can't be seen to be harmful or have harsh/offensive language included within the adverts. If the adverts contain violent or outrageous material, impressionable young people could be influenced and mimic the material shown, without knowing that it is dangerous or even illegal.
Because the app is for young, underage people as well as older people, we might use young people in the adverts. For this, we would need young people and their parent/carers to give consent to them being featured in it.We also need to make sure the actors and their parent/carer are always comfortable with what they are asked to do in the advert.
ASA
The ASA is the Advertising Standards Authority. They are an independent regulator that regulates advertising across all forms of media. They apply advertising codes, which are written by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP.)
We need to make sure we adhere to these advertising codes in our app, because the app will have to be advertised and marketed over lots of different medias.
We can't mislead people with our advertising and lie about what the app is or what it includes, because then people will buy it thinking one thing and then realise that the app is different to their expectation. We might also offer a 'lite' version of the app which is free and we need to make sure people know that this is the 'basic' version, and doesn't offer as much to the user as the version for which they have to pay.
We must make sure that the app and the advertising for it isn't causing harm, or serious or widespread offence. So as the explanation says, we make sure that the TV adverts are not too loud or show unsafe practices. We also need to look at issues such as making sure the advert doesn't use bright or flashing lights, as this would limit usage for people suffering with epilepsy.
As we might include children in the adverts, we need to make sure that we keep them safe. We will have to abide by all the legalities of using children such as making sure we get correct consent, making sure that they have frequent breaks, and that we have enough chaperones etc. We must make sure that the children are not pressurised into doing things that they don't want to do. The advert can't include anything that might harm them or include anything that they aren't comfortable with or are being pressured into.
P5: Assess the ethical, social and moral impact your proposal could have on stakeholders.
What are stakeholders?
Stakeholders are a person, group or organisation that has interest or concern in an organisation. Stakeholders can affect or be affected by the organisation's actions, objectives and policies. Some examples of key stakeholders are creditors, directors, employees, government (and its agencies), owners (shareholders), suppliers, unions, and the community from which the business draws its resources. (definition from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/stakeholder.html)
Here are all the ethical, social and moral implications surrounding the app and how they could impact stakeholders. These are very important for me to assess and say how I will deal with them.
GDPR and Private policy The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect on May 25th 2018 and is a huge change to the privacy laws on the internet. The laws are being changed because people are unhappy about the recent information unearthed during the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, and how tech and social media companies handle customer's data. Because we will be gathering some data from customers about what they have previously bought or clicked on, in order that we can suggest what they buy next, we then have a legal obligation to tell them that it is what we are doing. This will have to be done through a private policy, which outlines what data we are taking, what we are using it for and why we are doing it, so we are completely transparent with the customers and they know everything before they use the app.
In conclusion, I have to make sure that all the data being collected or used within my app is completely safe and protected, and that the app is complying to all GDPR regulations by outlying what data is being used and why in a private policy.
How this could effect stakeholders If the app is found guilty of not complying to GDPR regulations, the company could be fined over 4% of annual global turnover or 20 million euros (whichever is greater.) This would seriously hurt or maybe bankrupt the company, which would have serious repercussions on the stakeholders, because they've lost a lot of money and could be in debt. Also, if the app doesn't comply with the regulations, customers won't feel safe in using the app, and it will lose a lot of income from people not using it, and this in turn could effect stakeholders because they'll lose money. If we did not have the private policy and took and used the data anyway, it could look bad on the stakeholders and therefore, the companies in which they are investing. This then could lead to customers not using their companies and in turn, them losing a lot of money. Moral Panic As the app is using music videos and potentially interviews by artists, the themes that are in the music videos featured could be politics/news related and create moral panic in the young audience the app is targeting. For example, Childish Gambino's 'This is America' music video includes lots of serious and violent themes like gun violence and racial discrimination. This could create moral panic just because these themes are so clearly displayed in the video and it's a young, impressionable audience watching. This is bad because it could lead to the customers not using the app.
How this could effect stakeholders This could effect stakeholders because moral panic leads to social media hype against the names of the companies that conspired with the app and are linked to the app in some way. This could lead to customers not using them and that means less money for that company.
I will stop moral panic from being spread by only using censored music videos and content in the app, as well as only having content that is suitable for the younger demographic of the target audience.
Harming vulnerable people In the advertising of the app, under age people might be used to market the app for that audience. This means that the company making the app will have to abide by all the legal implications that come with including younger people such as
- Getting consent forms from them and their parent/carer - Making sure they are not being forced into anything they don't want to do - Making sure they are comfortable - Ensuring that they only work the legally allocated hours and have the legally allocated breaks
How this could effect stakeholders This could effect stakeholders if we don't abide by all the rules in using vulnerable people, because it looks bad on them as a company and could result in them losing money because the public don't trust their products. We may also be banned from using vulnerable people if we don't abide by the rules which means our marketing won't be as effective and we will lose market share leading to loss in profit for the stakeholders.
Explicit content Because we are using music videos, there could be some that use swear words or harsh language, or as we saw in the 'This is America' video, have violent themes in. This is not good as in our target audience (15 - 25), some are under-age. As it is morally and legally right to protect young people being exposed to harsh violence or offensive language, we will only use censored content on the app. This means that only music videos that have bleeped the harsh words out or that don't contain violence or harsh themes at all will be the ones featured in the app.
How this could effect stakeholders Could affect stakeholders because, again, it's bad press and tells people that we don't care about our users enough and don't cater to their needs.
Inaccurate information It is important the app always includes the right information and doesn't mislead anyone with the advertising or what's being presented on the app. This includes having the right pricing on the app and advertising, so the customer always clearly knows how much a product is, as well as how much the app costs on the App Store. It also means not lying about how the clothing actually looks or what the clothing is - so not saying a pair of jeans is an expensive brand and they are actually from Primark. Added to this, we must not lie about what is in the app, what it does or includes because then people will buy it expecting one thing and get something which is inferior or completely different.
How this could effect stakeholders If we don't use the right information, the app is not trustworthy and not credible to use. This means that people are likely not to want to use the app again and the app won't be profitable. Because the business relies on people retweeting and 'bigging up' the app, this will then affect the app publicly, as the feedback will be more negative than positive. There could also be backlash from clothing companies, as they could accuse us of mis-selling their products and that in turn could have repercussions on them and give them a bad name.