This is the Media LawAssigment due Monday last week by 6 pm
1. A private university produces several songs to promote their music department and to encourage potential high school students and transfers to choose the university. Essentially, they have created a means of recruiting
One song is an original, but there is a recurrent 8 note beat that is clearly taken from the song “Africa” by Toto. The university is sued for copyright infringement by ASCAP.
The university claims the use of the song is fair use.
ASCAP acknowledges the song is not being sold, but the song is being used for recruitment which is a means of securing funding—so the profit making is indirect.
Who wins this case? The criteria for your decision, and explaining how the criteria are applied to this case is more important than your final ruling on the case.
2. Several ethics codes are provided via Blackboard’s “Learning Units”. Explain 4 things all these codes have in common.
3. I have included the case of the proposed televising of the execution.
Using TWO of the ethical theories offered or using another one that you may find on your own, explain how EACH ethical theories will lead to conclusions about whether to participate in the televising. (You will have two ethical theories and two conclusions—one for each theory. The conclusions may be the same but your reasoning will differ depending on the theory you use.
Make sure your answers include definitions of the ethical theories in your OWN WORDS.
The powerpoint I used for the ethics lecture will be in Learning Units on blackboard and attached here.
Ethics case:
American television is offering you access to a pay-per view event that you can make a lot of money on. A video company in America has received permission to televise the 2000th execution of a prisoner. The producers of the video claim that it will be helpful to let viewers have a first-hand look at how executions take place so the public would have an informed opinion. The producers also state that the televising of the execution will provide unprecedented transparency of the process allowing an unedited and informed opinion of the process of executing a guilty person.
Opponents of the production claim that it will tell the world that this person they are putting to death has no value and that we can profit from his death. Opponents of the broadcast also claim that despite the permission given to have the execution broadcast and despite the financial gains to the family of the prisoner, it is impossible for the defendant to make an informed opinion about televising his death as no one can know the power of the moment of death and thus an informed opinion is impossible.
The person to be executed has given permission for televising the event with the agreement that his wife and child will receive $100,000 upon his death.
He is being put to death for killing a waitress and a child during a shooting spree at a restaurant in Alabama.
Your question: at $39.95 per showing per household, you can make from $400,000-$1.5 million dollar profit by agreeing to show this video presentation live, with two repeat showings available also at the same price to consumers.
Your bosses are pressuring you to make a profit. What do you do?
What are the ethical concerns? Which ethical theories put forth are relevant here that help guide your decision?
https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/19/us/death-penalty-fa…
By the way, “since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated by the US Supreme Court, states have executed 1,516 people (as of July 2020).
Since 1973, there have been 170 death row exonerations (as of July 2020). Twenty-nine of them are from the state of Florida.”
0 comments