The Legal Side: Contracts

A contract is an agreement that is intended to be enforced by rule, so breaking a contract would be illegal. The media industry use many various types of contracts to keep themselves and their employees safe.

One type of contract is the confidentiality contract, which its purpose is to protect information by keeping it confidential. This does not only keep employees safe by keeping their personal information safe (E.g. – phone number, email address, house address), but also the employers safe because an employee will not tell anyone about a companies "trading secrets". One reason why this type of contract is needed in the media industry in order to keep the spoilers of upcoming films and TV shows confidential until release. If everyone knew what happened in a film before it was released, this could affect how many people watch it, hindering a films success. So for this reason, confidentiality contracts are needed to guarantee that production ideas within the media industry remain a secret until their official (released or announced at a press conference).

Another type of contract is the exclusivity contract. This contract means that an employee can work with one company and one company only while contracted to them. This type of contract is beneficial to the employer as it makes sure that they stay loyal to the company and do not help out any rival companies. An example of this in the media industry would be the BBC and ITV. No one would be allowed to work at both at the same time because they are rival companies, so a company like ITV would not want their payed employee helping out a rival company like the BBC as that may hinder ITV's success. So overall, an exclusivity contract is needed so employees will stay loyal to a company and will not help out rivals by telling a rival company about your companies secrets.

If a contract is breached, the first step in any case where a contract is breached is to notify the other party and resolve the issue. If that fails, then it is possible to take legal action.


Sources

• http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/breach-of-contract