legal and ethical issues
Intellectual property (often abbreviated ‘IP’) is a term that is used to describe a wide range of types of property.
IP rights may be said to be ‘intangible’ in the sense that they do not constitute physical assets but nonetheless their importance to companies, whether small or large, cannot be underestimated. Copyright:
This right arises automatically in original artistic, dramatic and literary works, including video games and protects the expression of an idea not the idea itself.
Ownership of copyright will permit the owner to prevent unauthorized use including the making of copies or placement of the work on the Internet.
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 sets out the types of creative works that have copyright protection under English law.
Copyright protection does not last indefinitely and the period of protection varies for different works
Trademarks
Trademarks are signs or symbols which distinguish products or services from those of other businesses and gives the owner the exclusive right to use the mark.
To register a trademark it must fulfill the definition contained in the Trade Marks Act, 1994 namely, ‘any sign capable of being represented graphically which is capable of distinguishing goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings’ and an application made to the Intellectual Property Office (IPO).
Patents
Patents provide protection for inventions and new and inventive technical features of products and processes and the Patents Act, 1977 governs these rights.
In order to qualify for protection, an invention must be new, involve an inventive step, not be specifically excluded from protection and be capable of industrial application.
To obtain a patent in the UK, an application must be made to the IPO.
Designs
Design rights may be registered or unregistered, with the Registered Designs Act, 1949 providing protection for the whole or part of a design.
A design must meet certain qualifying criteria including, that the design be new, possesses individual character, it is not dictated purely by the product’s technical function.
The IPO processes registers designs in the UK.
Employee share incentives
Employee share incentives are where a employee, anybody who works for your company in the gaming industry can initially "buy" a share of your game this means that people earn money from your game they own 10% and they take 50% for example,
but there have been numerous cases where people have bought too many shares of a company 60-40% and you can initially take over another persons company, for example ubisoft had to actually get people to sell their game shares to creators in ubisoft so they could regain control back over their development team. (Hostile take over)
publishing licensing and distribution agreement.
This is a document that basically explains your rights and licenses.
Publishing agreement:
There's a lot of publishing agreements out there depending if the work being published is a game, game chapter, sequel prequel etc. Some producers don't use publishing agreements and this means they would only maintain the right to publish the work for the purpose it was submitted for. For example if the developer submits a game to a publisher and there wasn't a contract or agreement in place the developer can only publish the game as it's submitted.
The publishing agreement covers information such as when the work would be published, a set time, a due date and a deadline. How it will be published, digitally or hard copy or both, how many copies will be made available, if there's any shares involved and when they'll be paid etc. The publishing agreement will also state how copyright for the game would be managed.
There are various ways in which copyright can be dealt with with the agreement., The game creator assigns copyright to the publisher so this would mean in copyright the publisher would have certain rights to take over their material for how long the agreement takes place, This includes the right to publish, communicate and distribute online and to sub-license. The publisher can also allow another publisher to publish the work in another territory.
A distribution agreement is a legal agreement between a supplier and a distributor; so a games developer and a publisher. Distribution agreements are categorized as either exclusive or non exclusive.
In an exclusive distribution agreement the developer will grant the publisher over a particular territory and/or product line, sales.
Distribution agreements often have a term and condition of supply, so they have to cover the delivery of goods, the transfer of risk in and title to the goods, inspection requirements, returns, and more.
Distribution agreements can also go wrong with something called competition law, and some caution should be taken as there are a lot of things to take in consideration when creating or agreeing to a distribution law:
And finally a licensing agreement is a deal between the owner of a brand or trademark and someone who wants to use the trademarked goods (Game). The license therefore allows permission to be able to use these products.
It's also a written contract by which a owner permits another party to use that content under a specific set of rules.
Licensing agreements are used in various places and in different businesses such as companies that use computer software and programmes must agree to a licensing agreement from the software's copyright holder.
Another example is Mcdonalds happy meals recently started selling Pokemon toys in the 'happy meal' franchise of food, therefore mcdonalds had to get a licensing agreement to then sell those toys that were made by pokemon.
However entering into a licensing agreement may be hard and you should take caution because the manufacturer is likely to profit immensely from distribution agreement and they ca always take the business elsewhere if things go bad.
games finance
Games finance is basically where you can either get financing from a publisher or a platform holder, creating stretchgoals that includes a copy of the game. So you have this game idea and you go to pitch it, presenting your Games design document, your idea's, broadcasting it to a publisher and deal for a certain amount of money.
Certain types of games finance exist such as crowdfunding where people willingly give you money and whilst there are benefits to this if you then state with the money ypou've recieved and you don't then create the game people can state that you basically took the money and had nothing to show for it this then tarnishes your company name and your reputation as if you wanted to create games in the future a lot of people could say stuff like "Don't even waste your time with these guys, they took money and had nothing to show for it" and go fund me.
data protection and privacy policies
Data protection is how personal or customer information is used by organizations or government bodies, Data protection protects people and lays down a ground set of rules about how data about people can be used.
Data protection provides protection for more sensitive information such as Ethnic background, political opinions, religious beliefs, health, sexual life and criminal history. This is the same in games as there is data protection to prohibit you from stealing somebody else's data and preventing them from taking yours, data is saved and thats why there are cloud storages and saving to the cloud exists but still there need to be data protections to prevent any data from being stolen, erased or moved.
Types of data is personal and relates to individuals who can be personally identified from that set of data, this includes:
advertising and e-commerce regulations
E-commerce stands for electrical commerce and the regulations states that online retailers and service providers must comply with providing information that consumers must be provided with in online transactions. Fail to provide information is a breach of the electronic commerce regulation.
Services include free online information, services provision and online selling of products and services such as advertising, entertainment and Internet.
E-commerce is the practice of purchasing and selling stuff through online services on the Internet.
Advertising regulations
Your advertising must give customers the "whole picture" and not just some delusion that this is what you get however in reality it's complete false information or defamation such as saying "xbox is better as Sony charge people for games they haven't created and have been lying to you all"
releasing adverts that attack somebody else or tarnish somebody else's company.
dispute resolution.
All marketing and advertising must be an accurate description of the product, legal, truthful, and not encouraging anti-social, unsafe and/or illegal behavior. Other words products shouldn't influence people to do wrong things, it's against the law.
commercial property
Commercial property is a property that is used for business activities, it can also be land that generates profit so the games industry for example.
Commercial property including sales prices, new building rates and occupancy rates is used as a measure for business activity in a specific region or economy so this would be in the games industry monitoring all the business and the income, seeing how much money is being gained and lost. Investing in shares to gain more money and make more money for profit
To register a trademark it must fulfill the definition contained in the Trade Marks Act, 1994 namely, ‘any sign capable of being represented graphically which is capable of distinguishing goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings’ and an application made to the Intellectual Property Office (IPO).
Patents
Patents provide protection for inventions and new and inventive technical features of products and processes and the Patents Act, 1977 governs these rights.
In order to qualify for protection, an invention must be new, involve an inventive step, not be specifically excluded from protection and be capable of industrial application.
To obtain a patent in the UK, an application must be made to the IPO.
Designs
Design rights may be registered or unregistered, with the Registered Designs Act, 1949 providing protection for the whole or part of a design.
A design must meet certain qualifying criteria including, that the design be new, possesses individual character, it is not dictated purely by the product’s technical function.
The IPO processes registers designs in the UK.
Employee share incentives
Employee share incentives are where a employee, anybody who works for your company in the gaming industry can initially "buy" a share of your game this means that people earn money from your game they own 10% and they take 50% for example,
but there have been numerous cases where people have bought too many shares of a company 60-40% and you can initially take over another persons company, for example ubisoft had to actually get people to sell their game shares to creators in ubisoft so they could regain control back over their development team. (Hostile take over)
publishing licensing and distribution agreement.
This is a document that basically explains your rights and licenses.
Publishing agreement:
There's a lot of publishing agreements out there depending if the work being published is a game, game chapter, sequel prequel etc. Some producers don't use publishing agreements and this means they would only maintain the right to publish the work for the purpose it was submitted for. For example if the developer submits a game to a publisher and there wasn't a contract or agreement in place the developer can only publish the game as it's submitted.
The publishing agreement covers information such as when the work would be published, a set time, a due date and a deadline. How it will be published, digitally or hard copy or both, how many copies will be made available, if there's any shares involved and when they'll be paid etc. The publishing agreement will also state how copyright for the game would be managed.
There are various ways in which copyright can be dealt with with the agreement., The game creator assigns copyright to the publisher so this would mean in copyright the publisher would have certain rights to take over their material for how long the agreement takes place, This includes the right to publish, communicate and distribute online and to sub-license. The publisher can also allow another publisher to publish the work in another territory.
A distribution agreement is a legal agreement between a supplier and a distributor; so a games developer and a publisher. Distribution agreements are categorized as either exclusive or non exclusive.
In an exclusive distribution agreement the developer will grant the publisher over a particular territory and/or product line, sales.
Distribution agreements often have a term and condition of supply, so they have to cover the delivery of goods, the transfer of risk in and title to the goods, inspection requirements, returns, and more.
Distribution agreements can also go wrong with something called competition law, and some caution should be taken as there are a lot of things to take in consideration when creating or agreeing to a distribution law:
- the territorial or other scope of an agreement
- non exclusively or exclusivity
- non compete obligations
- marketing rights
- trade mark licensing
- terms and conditions of sale.
And finally a licensing agreement is a deal between the owner of a brand or trademark and someone who wants to use the trademarked goods (Game). The license therefore allows permission to be able to use these products.
It's also a written contract by which a owner permits another party to use that content under a specific set of rules.
Licensing agreements are used in various places and in different businesses such as companies that use computer software and programmes must agree to a licensing agreement from the software's copyright holder.
Another example is Mcdonalds happy meals recently started selling Pokemon toys in the 'happy meal' franchise of food, therefore mcdonalds had to get a licensing agreement to then sell those toys that were made by pokemon.
However entering into a licensing agreement may be hard and you should take caution because the manufacturer is likely to profit immensely from distribution agreement and they ca always take the business elsewhere if things go bad.
games finance
Games finance is basically where you can either get financing from a publisher or a platform holder, creating stretchgoals that includes a copy of the game. So you have this game idea and you go to pitch it, presenting your Games design document, your idea's, broadcasting it to a publisher and deal for a certain amount of money.
Certain types of games finance exist such as crowdfunding where people willingly give you money and whilst there are benefits to this if you then state with the money ypou've recieved and you don't then create the game people can state that you basically took the money and had nothing to show for it this then tarnishes your company name and your reputation as if you wanted to create games in the future a lot of people could say stuff like "Don't even waste your time with these guys, they took money and had nothing to show for it" and go fund me.
data protection and privacy policies
Data protection is how personal or customer information is used by organizations or government bodies, Data protection protects people and lays down a ground set of rules about how data about people can be used.
Data protection provides protection for more sensitive information such as Ethnic background, political opinions, religious beliefs, health, sexual life and criminal history. This is the same in games as there is data protection to prohibit you from stealing somebody else's data and preventing them from taking yours, data is saved and thats why there are cloud storages and saving to the cloud exists but still there need to be data protections to prevent any data from being stolen, erased or moved.
Types of data is personal and relates to individuals who can be personally identified from that set of data, this includes:
- names
- addresses
- telephone numbers
- dates of birth
- job titles
- IP addresses
advertising and e-commerce regulations
E-commerce stands for electrical commerce and the regulations states that online retailers and service providers must comply with providing information that consumers must be provided with in online transactions. Fail to provide information is a breach of the electronic commerce regulation.
Services include free online information, services provision and online selling of products and services such as advertising, entertainment and Internet.
E-commerce is the practice of purchasing and selling stuff through online services on the Internet.
Advertising regulations
Your advertising must give customers the "whole picture" and not just some delusion that this is what you get however in reality it's complete false information or defamation such as saying "xbox is better as Sony charge people for games they haven't created and have been lying to you all"
releasing adverts that attack somebody else or tarnish somebody else's company.
dispute resolution.
All marketing and advertising must be an accurate description of the product, legal, truthful, and not encouraging anti-social, unsafe and/or illegal behavior. Other words products shouldn't influence people to do wrong things, it's against the law.
commercial property
Commercial property is a property that is used for business activities, it can also be land that generates profit so the games industry for example.
Commercial property including sales prices, new building rates and occupancy rates is used as a measure for business activity in a specific region or economy so this would be in the games industry monitoring all the business and the income, seeing how much money is being gained and lost. Investing in shares to gain more money and make more money for profit
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