Legal & Ethical Considerations

Legal & Ethical Considerations

What is Copyright Law?

Copyright is a legal right created by the law of a country that allows the creator of an original idea to have exclusive rights for its use and distribution. This is usually only for a limited time. The exclusive rights are not always forever but limited by limitations and exceptions to copyright law, including fair use.

What is intellectual property?

This is a right that is had by a person or by a company to have exclusive rights to use its own plans, ideas, or other assets without the worry of competition, at least for a specific period of time. These rights can include copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets.

What is the Equality & Diversity Law?

Discrimination occurs when someone directly or indirectly treats a person or a group of people unfavourably because of a protected characteristic of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation.The law is there to show that every workplace or other has to be environmentally friendly to all of the population, this can be if you are male or female and other.

How are Female characters represented in games?

The way of men and women in video games, as in other media, is a subject  in gender studies and is discussed in the context of sexism in video gaming.
Although women make are half of the video game players, they are significantly underrepresented as characters in mainstream games/ main role, despite this the iconic heroines such as Samus Aran or Lara Croft. The portrayal of women in games often shows traditional gender roles, sexual objectification or negative stereotypes. Male characters are often stereo typically depicted as big and muscular, and LGBT characters have been slow to appear in video games as a result of the heterosexuality of the medium.This indicates that how genders are portrayed in games can influence players' perception of gender roles, and that young girls prefer to play a character of their own gender much more than boys do. On average, female-led games sell fewer copies than male-led ones, but also have lower marketing budgets.

What is PEGI?

The Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) age rating system was established to help European parents make informed decisions on buying computer games.

Who are the BBFC?

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC),  the British Board of Film Censors, is a 

non-government organisation, founded by the film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of films exhibited at cinemas and video works (such as television programmes, trailers, adverts, public Information/campaigning films, menus, bonus content etc.) released on physical media within the United Kingdom. It has a statutory requirement to classify videos, DVDs and, to a lesser extent, some video games under the Video Recordings Act 1984.

What are the ASA codes of conduct?

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media. We apply the Advertising Codes, which are written by the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP).

What is Libel?

Defamation, calumny, vilification, or traducement is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual person, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation.