HA3 Task 6 Legal and Ethical Obligations

Legal Obligations

IP

IP or intellectual property is a term which refers to a number of types of creations of the mind, for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized as well as the corresponding fields of law.
under the intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of assets like musical liberty; artistic works; discoveries and inventions; words and phrases, symbols and designs. the common types of intellectual property rights include copyrights; trademarks; patents and industrial design rights.

Copyright

Copyright is an artistic or literary expression. Computer programs are a useful example of a type of work that isn't included in the list of the Berne Convention, but is undoubtedly included in the notion of a product in the literary;scientific and artistic domain withing the meaning of article 2. Although, computer programs are protected under copyright laws in a number of countries, as well as under the WIPO Copyright Treaty of 1996.












http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

Trademark

Trademark is the name that a creator of a project or inventions gives to it. Trademarks are badges of origin, they distinguish the goods and services of one trader to another and can have many forms such as words; slogans; logos; shapes; colours and sounds. A trademark is registered for specific goods or services in an individual subject knows as a "class". It is possible for other people to register identical or similar marks so long as it is in a different class.











http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark

Patent

A patent is basically how something works. Patents for inventions are given by the government to the inventor, which gives the inventor the rights to prevent others from making; using and selling the invention without their permission, but only for a limited amount of time. When a patent is given, the invention becomes the property of the inventor, which can be bought; sold; rented or hired. A patent is a territorial right: a UK patent only gives the holder rights in the UK and rights to stop others form importing the patent products into the UK.

Registered Designs

A registered design is what a product looks like. Registered designs are for the eye appeal of an object, they are applied for at an intellectual property office. Britain also has a 'Design Right' which provides automatic protection for the duration of fifteen years from the date of creation, even if a registered design isn't applied for. Since August 1989, any registered design has a maximum of 25 years protection which is subject to renewal fees.

Ethical Obligations

Violence

Many studies have lead to the belief that violence in video games causes people to act the same. I think that this is not true and that violence in video games is a good thing. In a sense, violence is needed in some video games as people can let out some of their anger in the video games as oppose to doing it in reality. It also allows people to commit crimes without facing the penalty for such crimes as the crimes are being committed in a virtual environment.

Rating

Games are rated in different categories. Early childhood; Everyone; Everyone above the age of 10; Teen; Mature 17+ and adults only 18+.

Video games are commonly rated by PEGI (Pan European Game Information) PEGI rate games with an age restriction based on the content that they contain. Games content include.
Violence





Bad language






Sex





Drugs





Discrimination





Gambling





Online game

Education

Some video games teach us good things whilst others teach things which are not. Games such as Wii fit teaches us that it is important to maintain a healthy lifestyle via exercise. It also teaches us to enjoy sports at our home like Bowling; Golf and Tennis. Other games like Dead Island teach us a large amount about violence, mainly due to the large amount of violence as well as a fair amount of foul language, however this particular in a sense teaches us about the human anatomy, only isn't done is the nicest of ways. The fact of whether a game is educational or not also affects its popularity. A large majority of people prefer games which involve violence as they find it more enjoyable to play.

Stereotyping

Due to the fact that the vast majority of video games focus on mostly men, a large number of people think that the are stereotyping against women. This is mainly due to the fact that there are a lot of male characters as oppose to female characters. In games which involve a character creation process, people are able to choose between a male and female character. In games that don't it may be due to a lack of female characters in the story or just a case of their not being a large enough budget to cover two main character in which case the developers chose to remove a female character.

Addiction

Addiction is an important problem that video games cause to certain people. This can be caused by the game being highly suited to the player's interests, for example. A certain individual may have a large interest in medieval history as well as fantasy, therefore a game such as Skyrim would be highly suited towards to that person's interests which may cause that person to become addicted to that particular game. Addiction can also be caused by the amount of online capabilities that a certain game may have. Grand Theft Auto V is a good example of this as the online mode has a large number mini-games which players can co-operate in.