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
unauthorised 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
This is when some companies will actually give their employees a share of the companies earnings like 1% this is a good thing because if someone who works for you is really good you can give them some of the shares in the business and there's a higher chance they'll stay on and carry on working for you, but the negative is if they don't want to work for you anymore they could sell their share in the company for less than what it's worth and this could lead to someone else taking over your company and you will no longer own it and lose it. This almost happened to Ubisoft because a lot a the employees who worked for them left an sold their shares to Vivendi and Ubisoft had to buy back the shares to stop Vivendi taking over. and owning their company.
Publishing, Licensing and Distribution Agreements
These are agreements that need to be between publishers and developers so they can decide when to publish the game some companies can't publish games in every country games like Persona 5 couldn't as Atlus had nothing in Europe so they had to get a publisher which can publish in Europe to publish their game. Distribution is when the game releases worldwide or in different parts of the world most games now release everywhere as soon as they're released put some games still do not which might be bad for the developers as they will lose money as people who live in Europe for example will just buy the game from somewhere like Amazon cheaper and get it shipped to them and they will be able to play it. But companies like Capcom don't allow you to buy from Amazon because if you try to buy a game released earlier in America it doesn't allow shipping and they make you wait until it's released in your county so the company saves money.
Games Finance
Games Finance is how you finance your game some games like Super Meat Boy were fully self-financed and the game become really popular and got a lot of sales and it really went well for the game developers. Some games get financing from their publisher as they will work together they will help you pay for your game and get money put into it if the game fails the developers always blame the publishers because of their investment some companies might also use funds where they are basically been given money from loads of different people to help fund their game this is risk free but it gives your company a bad reputation and every will know about it and it could effect your company in the long run.
Data Protection and Privacy Polices
Data Protection is when companies need to protect their data so they don't get hacked by a hacker and also to protect customers private info this happened to Sony as they got hacked into by a hacker and some peoples personal info was leaked. Companies try to do everything they can to protect peoples personal data from being given out as comapnies have to keep some info about your onlije activity within that game and what your buying in the game DLC for example. This doesn't effect single player games as the developer has no need to keep your info if it's just single player so it happens a lot more to games with online as they're the games keeping some info about you. Nothing is hack-proof but companies try to make it as hard as possible for hackers to get into the company, The company also regularly asks you to update your info in case you live at a new address or your e-mail has changed so they need to know that your info is up to date as it's also illegal to keep false date on the consumer.
Advertising and e-commerce regulations
Advertising regulations are what you're not aloud to do in a advertisment for your game so you can't do things like false advertising a lot of games use bull shots which are screenshots for there game but they have edited it in Photoshop and changed things like the resolution and they will enhanced the image a lot and make it look better than what it actually is and then they will use these screenshots on the back of their game when they sell it so the customer isn't getting fully what they show on the back of the game.
Dispute Resolution
Every game company must have a legal team to deal with protection and hackers and people losing their info to hackers. EA and Epic Games had to appear in front of parliament so the games legal teams had to answer questions about their company and how to ensure peoples money and details are safe it didn't go well for EA and Epic Games as they didn't really fully answer the questions and didn't sound confident in their answers.
Commercial Property
Commercial Property is the property you own as a game developer/publisher like your headquarters. Sony got hacked and they were in a lot of debt and this lead to them actually selling their massive building in Tokyo and the building has worth millions of pounds so they were able to get out of the debt and get back to where they were but without the building.
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
unauthorised 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
This is when some companies will actually give their employees a share of the companies earnings like 1% this is a good thing because if someone who works for you is really good you can give them some of the shares in the business and there's a higher chance they'll stay on and carry on working for you, but the negative is if they don't want to work for you anymore they could sell their share in the company for less than what it's worth and this could lead to someone else taking over your company and you will no longer own it and lose it. This almost happened to Ubisoft because a lot a the employees who worked for them left an sold their shares to Vivendi and Ubisoft had to buy back the shares to stop Vivendi taking over. and owning their company.
Publishing, Licensing and Distribution Agreements
These are agreements that need to be between publishers and developers so they can decide when to publish the game some companies can't publish games in every country games like Persona 5 couldn't as Atlus had nothing in Europe so they had to get a publisher which can publish in Europe to publish their game. Distribution is when the game releases worldwide or in different parts of the world most games now release everywhere as soon as they're released put some games still do not which might be bad for the developers as they will lose money as people who live in Europe for example will just buy the game from somewhere like Amazon cheaper and get it shipped to them and they will be able to play it. But companies like Capcom don't allow you to buy from Amazon because if you try to buy a game released earlier in America it doesn't allow shipping and they make you wait until it's released in your county so the company saves money.
Games Finance
Games Finance is how you finance your game some games like Super Meat Boy were fully self-financed and the game become really popular and got a lot of sales and it really went well for the game developers. Some games get financing from their publisher as they will work together they will help you pay for your game and get money put into it if the game fails the developers always blame the publishers because of their investment some companies might also use funds where they are basically been given money from loads of different people to help fund their game this is risk free but it gives your company a bad reputation and every will know about it and it could effect your company in the long run.
Data Protection and Privacy Polices
Data Protection is when companies need to protect their data so they don't get hacked by a hacker and also to protect customers private info this happened to Sony as they got hacked into by a hacker and some peoples personal info was leaked. Companies try to do everything they can to protect peoples personal data from being given out as comapnies have to keep some info about your onlije activity within that game and what your buying in the game DLC for example. This doesn't effect single player games as the developer has no need to keep your info if it's just single player so it happens a lot more to games with online as they're the games keeping some info about you. Nothing is hack-proof but companies try to make it as hard as possible for hackers to get into the company, The company also regularly asks you to update your info in case you live at a new address or your e-mail has changed so they need to know that your info is up to date as it's also illegal to keep false date on the consumer.
Advertising and e-commerce regulations
Advertising regulations are what you're not aloud to do in a advertisment for your game so you can't do things like false advertising a lot of games use bull shots which are screenshots for there game but they have edited it in Photoshop and changed things like the resolution and they will enhanced the image a lot and make it look better than what it actually is and then they will use these screenshots on the back of their game when they sell it so the customer isn't getting fully what they show on the back of the game.
Dispute Resolution
Every game company must have a legal team to deal with protection and hackers and people losing their info to hackers. EA and Epic Games had to appear in front of parliament so the games legal teams had to answer questions about their company and how to ensure peoples money and details are safe it didn't go well for EA and Epic Games as they didn't really fully answer the questions and didn't sound confident in their answers.
Commercial Property
Commercial Property is the property you own as a game developer/publisher like your headquarters. Sony got hacked and they were in a lot of debt and this lead to them actually selling their massive building in Tokyo and the building has worth millions of pounds so they were able to get out of the debt and get back to where they were but without the building.
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