James Clayton

Legal & Ethical

Copyright:
Copy right is instantly applied to any work that has used some judgment or skill to create,
simply copying work does not make it allegeable for copyright protection. It is the
expression of the idea that is protected and not the idea itself, this means people can still
create something similar but not the exactly the same. The main categories in the UK that
are protected are as follows:

Films
Sound recordings
Broadcasts
Original literary works such as novels, poems, tables or lists and computer programs
Original dramatic works such as dance or mime
Original musical works such as musical notes
Original artistic works such as graphic works such as paintings or drawings,
photographs and sculptures.

The owner of the copyright is the person who created the work, this could be an author of a
book or a composition of music. If an employee of a company comes up with an idea that
gets copyrighted, the copyright belongs to them and not the company that employs them.
This rule exists to stop companies taking ideas of their employees without permission and
then taking credit for the work. The owner of the copyright have both moral and economical
rights, these allow the owner to copy, distribute, rent or lend out their work. They can also
communicate it to the public through the internet or in a show. The moral rights of the
copyright owner include the right to be identified as the owner, the right to not have work
that they did not create falsely attributed to them. The moral rights are ones that the author
retain in their works which are irrespective of whoever owns the economic rights of the
work, this means they can be waived but not licensed or assigned. The length the copyright
lasts depends on what type of work it is. For literary, dramatic, music or art work the
copyright lasts 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the author dies. For
typographical work such as layout or appearance of printed articles the copyright lasts for
25 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was first published.
As I will be creating all of the graphics from my own ideas I wont have to check for
copyright as Im not using any other work to create my own.

Libel:
There are two versions of defamation, libel and slander. Libel is when the defamation is
written down (including email, bulletin boards and websites), and slander is when the
incident relates to words spoken. In the UK, if someone thinks that what you wrote about
them is either defamatory or damaging its entirely on to prove that your comments are
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true in court. The punishment given out to people who break libel law is determined by how
much damage has been done to the person who has been attacked. This damage is
measured by how widespread the information was shown. For example, if the defamation
was shown on the front page of a large newspaper they would get a bigger charge than if it
was written on the back page of a local paper.

Ethical:
It is very important that people who work in media production such as magazines and new
papers are very careful about what they publish as it may offend certain groups of people.
Due to this lots of restrictions are applied in regards to what people can say and do, this
exists to protect groups of people from discrimination or racisms. People that publish news
articles online may think they can avoid these restrictions as they can remain anonymous
but this isnt true, the computer that was used to publish the content can be tracked down
and then linked to the person or people that wrote the offensive content. Larger companies
such as news shows that produce live TV often have a five second delay to the viewer as a
safety net in case any offensive content is showed/said. This delay is in place to protect the
viewers and also the company as they could get sued for lots of money if the offensive
content is shown.
Topics that are very strictly monitored in case anything offensive is said are as follows:

Gender (Male or Female)

Sexuality (Homosexual or heterosexual)
Disabilities (Able bodied or anything other)
Nationality (American, British, French as a few examples.)
Class (Lower, Middle and Upper)
Age (Children, Teenagers, Adults, Elders)
Race (Black, White, Hispanic as a few examples)

All of these topics are very heavily restricted to discuss about as if something offensive is
said it could offend millions of people. You are not allowed to suggest in any way that one
group is more superior to another, if so the work that contains this information will not be
allowed to be published. Im not going to reference any of these topics in my graphics
though so I dont have to worry about them.

Confidentiality:
This I where if a person gives confidential information to a company or organisation in a
confidential manor such as to a doctor, the company or organisation isnt allowed to them
go and tell that information to other people unless the person who gave the information
gives the consent too. Confidentiality exists to protect the private information of people
who are trying to get help or guidance as if the information was openly viewable then it
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could be used to harm a persons image. This wont apply to my work as it will just be
graphics for a game.

Decency:
Decency refers to if something is suitable for public viewing or not, this is to protect the
public from inappropriate images such as nudity. Other things can also effect if something if
indecent or not like gore, this is one of the main things that effects the rating of something
as very little game and programmes contain nudity but lots contain gore. The rating of a
game is linked to the decency of it, the higher the age rating for something the more
indecent it is. All of my graphics will be PG rated as they will contain no gore or nudity as the
game is designed for a young audience.

Representation:
Representation is how things such as gender, age, ethnicity, national and regional identity
are represented in any piece of work. Representation exists as if a magazine or game which
has a large audience represents something in a bad light that isnt true it could damage the
representation of that thing, this can be very damaging if its a person or company as it can
lead to people avoiding using that company meaning they will lose revenue. Im not
representing any type of people or group in my graphics as everything is my own idea so I
wont have to worry about misrepresenting anybody.

Codes of practise:
The Code of Practice for Official Statistics promotes the production and distribution of
official statistics that inform decision making, and supports the continuous improvement of
those statistics. The Code applies to all UK bodies that produce official statistics, it
encourages and supports them to maintain their independence and to ensure adequate
resourcing for statistical production. It helps producers and users of statistics by setting out
the necessary principles and practices to produce statistics that are trustworthy, high quality
and of public value. As Im creating an advert that doesnt have any statistics on it these
codes dont apply to my advert. If I was to use statistics in my advert such as this % of
people eat out cereal bars I would have to make sure I follow these codes.