HA1 Task 6 - Contractual, Legal, Ethical and Professional

Task 6 - Contractual, Legal, Ethical & Professional

Legal

What is and what isn't permitted by law.

Copyright – Artistic or Literally Expression

Copyright normally protects the work created by, or 'originated' with, their author. There must have been some skill, labour or judgment in the creation of the work.

The first owner will normally be the author. In most cases, the author is the person who created the work: the composer of the text or the music, the artist, the photographer.

Copyright is different to other forms of IP. It is an automatic right you cannot register with the IPO (Intellectual Property Office); therefore there are no forms to complete and no fees to pay. Once created the copyright belongs to you.

You would then need to create a record of your work in order to prove the date of creation and ownership. One way of doing this is posting your idea to yourself, the post office will then stamp and date on the letter/parcel and when you receive it does not open it. Then you have your idea copyrighted with proof of date and that it is yours.

Trademark – What You Call It

Trademarks are badges of origin. They distinguish the goods or services of one trader from another and can take many forms; for example words, slogans, logos, shapes, colours and sounds.

Trade Marks are registered for specific goods or services within individual subjects, known as classes. It is possible for others to register identical or similar marks as long as it is in a different, unconnected class.

Patent – How Something Works

A patent for an invention is granted by government to the inventor, giving the inventor the right to stop others, for a limited period, from making, using or selling the invention without their permission. When a patent is granted the invention becomes the property of the inventor, which like any other form of property or business asset can be bought, sold, rented or hired. Patents are territorial rights: a UK patent will only give the holder rights in the UK and rights to stop others from importing the patented products into and out of the UK.

Registered Designs – What It Looks Like

Registered Designs are for the eye appeal of an object. They are applied for at The Intellectual Property Office.

Britain also has a ‘Design Right’ providing automatic protection for 15 years from the date of creation, even when a registered design is not applied for.

From August 1989, registered designs have a maximum of 25 years protection subject to renewal fees.

One item could use all four of these such as game cover, a Copyright for the actual game, a Trademark for the company who made it and their logo, a registered design for what it looks like, and finally a trademark from the game.

Ethical

The science of moral in human beings.

Violence
Violence is naturally seen as unethical and it shouldn't occur in daily life, but in video games in occurs as if it were natural and as a norm...

Rating
A rating of the video game is given by PEGI, ESRB, and CERO. this will judged upon the use of adult themes such as drugs, sex and alcohol and the use of illegal themes such as robbery, murder and drug use. different countries use different rating systems, USA use ESRB while China uses CERO which have similar yet different ratings due to law and culture references...

Education
...

Stereotyping
...

Addiction
It is very well known that video games can be very addictive. And the games industry does know this and uses it to their advantage, as they should. but many (online F2P games mainly) have a timer that comes up after 6 hours to tell the player to take a break. but it is unknown for that to happen in any console or PC games...

Legal and Ethical Obligations

Explain and illustrate the legal and ethical obligations within the games industry. Produce a profile for each of the following:

Legal	Ethical
Copyright Trademark Patent Registered Designs	Violence Rating Education Stereotyping Addiction

You are aiming to comprehensively explain legal and ethical obligations in the games industry with reference to elucidated examples. You should be using subject terminology consistently and correctly.