Legal
Protection of property.
Protection of property.
Copyright-
Copyright is a legal right created by the low of a country that grants ownership and prevents anyone from using what someone has created and owns. The definition you can fin in the internet is:
Copyright is a legal right created by the law of a country that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights for its use and distribution. This is usually only for a limited time. The exclusive rights are not absolute but limited by limitations and exceptions to copyright law, including fair use. A major limitation on copyright is that copyright protects only the original expression of ideas, and not the underlying ideas themselves.
In gaming, copyright works the same way as in other cases but for example, copyright does not with the Idea. If someone comes up with an idea that will change the industry but he/she is not able to all save the sources, artwork or any piece of work that gives the information and says that is his/her idea then you cannot do anything about other people "stealing" you project
But if for example copyright will give you protection as soon as you save your work anywhere and you fix an expression of the idea that is dated. A practical example is if I come up with an idea for a RPG game, if I start creating assets and the main plot and I save everything ( + The information that provides date and time) then that work is mine and I own all the right of use and distribution.
Trademark-
Trademarks protect the goodwill and reputation associated with your company or video games as brand.
Trademarks are any name or symbol indicative of a source of origin of a product or service. You can protect your trademarks by the use of two methods:
State Trademark Laws, each state offers trademark protection based on the use of the trademark in that state.
Register the trademark with the U.S (US as example in this case) Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which protects the trademark throughout the United States.
Registered trademarks offer advantages over non-registered trademarks, and allow you to use the ® symbol. Once a trademark is registered, no other entity can use any name or mark that is identical to or is likely to cause confusion with your registered trademark anywhere in the U.S.
Patent-
The Wikipedia definition for Patent states:
A Patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for detailed public disclosure of an invention. An invention is a solution to a specific technological problem and is a product or a process. Patents are a form of intellectual property.
Patents basically protects inventions from being copied, patents can be thought of as protecting ideas, whereas a copyright only protects a particular expression of an idea.
Every patent includes a description of the invention as well as more than one or more "claims" that define the legal metes and bounds of the invention.
Contracts
Contracts are created to make sure that everyone who is following one knows and its aware of what he has to accomplish. Live example could be that you sign a contract that says you are gonna do "Something something something" but then after a month or two they ask you to do something that is not listed in your contract, if this happens you are free to say no because you never signed to do that "something".
Collaboration Agreements Document-
We call collaboration agreement when two or more individuals emerge together to achieve a common goal whether is to business purposes or to resolve personal legal disputes. The written agreement creates an enforceable contract after everyone in both sides have signed it.
An example could be a business purpose that involved Adidas and Puma , they did collaborate together to create intelligent sportswear and accessories.
Employment Contract-
I guess the most known and used contract in business is the Employment Contract. This types of contract states the employee obligations in withing the company and also what the company wants them to do and what they expect from him/her.
An employee contract in the games industry also will include:
Benefits such as health insurance
Holidays/Bonuses
How much will be initially paid
What could also and usually is gonna be included and stated in the contract is that any secrets with ongoing projects are confidential and can only be released when the company wants it to.
Also, any assets, characters or other creations of the employee are automatically the property of the company.
If the contract is broken by an employee the immediate response will be the loss of the job and a big issue in the past that can lead to problems when looking for others jobs within the games industry. The worst case scenario is the example I have said but this does not happen all the time.
If the contract is broken by the company the employee has the right to sue/denounce the company.
Development Agreements-
Either in the games industry or others industries, companies will hire people with a the role they need from outside to work with their employees.
This type of contracts will state the roles of both sides who are signing the contract, apart from that other legal contract are need to ensure no one end ups broken the contact without any consequence.
As other contracts do, the development agreement will state how much the developer will get paid by the Publisher/Company.
Legal Details also included in the agreement: (Examples)
The ownership of the IP is signed over the Company/Publisher, that can change depending on the deal terms
Royalties and how they are calculated
Payment schedule
Confidentiality agreements
License Agreements-
The license agreement is a type of contract for licensed material, patented material or trademarks.
In games this could happen when you want to put a song into your game,
Example "Fly me to the moon" in the Game Bayonetta.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mceFmnAJLL4
It could also happen when a game is based on a certain book or film.
Elements of a License Agreement:
Payments from the licensee to the licensor usually take the form of guaranteed minimum payments and royalties on sales.
Another important element of a licensing agreement establishes the time frame of the deal.
Most licensing agreements also address the issue of quality. For example, the licensor may insert conditions in the contract requiring the licensee to provide prototypes of the product, mockups of the packaging, and even occasional samples throughout the term of the contract.
Confidentiality Agreements
Confidentiality also known as non-disclosure agreement is a legal contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties wish to share with one another for certain purposes.
Basically, this type of contracts ensure that nothing ongoing within the project is told to anyone outside the company and the project is confidential.
This helps against any type of copyright or trademarking and also any early releases or problems that the company is having when the game is in development process
Ethical Considerations
Violence and Discrimination-
Violence and Discrimination has to be one of the most known issues in videogames, quite often is questioned if whether it needed or not.
Depending the games violence can go from just a small cinematic scene with a fight and other simple stuff such as killing an animal for survival. Sometimes it can be brutal and in those moments is when is questioned whether is need or not.
Simple violence:
In this case we can see he did kill spiders for survival reasons and if we check and think about it it would make sense because is the main theme of the game, surviving as much as possible using the environment.
Game - Don't Starve
Brutality and Questionable violence:
In this case we have a brutal game that focuses on killing as much people as possible, this violence is needless and the game can be questionable.
Game - Hatred
The case of Discrimination is as important as violence and it really works following the same rules, it can be really light but it also can be a really big deal and the developers of a game have to be careful when creating the ethical side of the game.
Rating-
Videogames are classified by using different video game content rating systems depending the country the game is created or delivered.
Examples could be:
ESRB
PEGI
ESRB is known as Entertainment Software Rating Board and some rating they have are:
PEGI is known as Pan European Game Information and is a system used in Europe to rate the content in videogames.
The ratings of PEGI are:
Violence
Bad language
Fear
Sex
Drugs
Discrimination
Gambling
Online Game
The age ratings of PEGI are:
3
7
12
16
18
Age Ratings?
Age ratings are systems used to ensure that entertainment content, such as films, videos, DVDs, and computer games, are clearly labelled by age according to the content they contain. Age ratings provide guidance to consumers (particularly parents) to help them decide whether or not to buy a particular product.
Addiction-
What makes a game addictive?
People like to spend free time playing games, soon, friends, family, school, and even personal hygiene are neglected as nearly every spare moment is spent playing the game.
Video games are designed to be addictive. Not "addictive" in the clinical sense of the word, but game designers are always looking for ways to make their games more interesting and increase the amount of time people will spend playing them.
Violence and Discrimination-
Violence and Discrimination has to be one of the most known issues in videogames, quite often is questioned if whether it needed or not.
Depending the games violence can go from just a small cinematic scene with a fight and other simple stuff such as killing an animal for survival. Sometimes it can be brutal and in those moments is when is questioned whether is need or not.
Simple violence:
In this case we can see he did kill spiders for survival reasons and if we check and think about it it would make sense because is the main theme of the game, surviving as much as possible using the environment.
Game - Don't Starve
Brutality and Questionable violence:
In this case we have a brutal game that focuses on killing as much people as possible, this violence is needless and the game can be questionable.
Game - Hatred
The case of Discrimination is as important as violence and it really works following the same rules, it can be really light but it also can be a really big deal and the developers of a game have to be careful when creating the ethical side of the game.
Rating-
Videogames are classified by using different video game content rating systems depending the country the game is created or delivered.
Examples could be:
ESRB
PEGI
ESRB is known as Entertainment Software Rating Board and some rating they have are:
RATING CATEGORIES
PEGI is known as Pan European Game Information and is a system used in Europe to rate the content in videogames.
The ratings of PEGI are:
Violence
Bad language
Fear
Sex
Drugs
Discrimination
Gambling
Online Game
The age ratings of PEGI are:
3
7
12
16
18
Age Ratings?
Age ratings are systems used to ensure that entertainment content, such as films, videos, DVDs, and computer games, are clearly labelled by age according to the content they contain. Age ratings provide guidance to consumers (particularly parents) to help them decide whether or not to buy a particular product.
Addiction-
What makes a game addictive?
People like to spend free time playing games, soon, friends, family, school, and even personal hygiene are neglected as nearly every spare moment is spent playing the game.
Video games are designed to be addictive. Not "addictive" in the clinical sense of the word, but game designers are always looking for ways to make their games more interesting and increase the amount of time people will spend playing them.
Some symptoms of game addiction:
Preoccupation with thoughts of previous online activity or anticipation of the next online session
Lying to friends or family members regarding the amount of time spent playing
Isolation from others in order to spend more time gaming
Fatigue
Migraines due to intense concentration or eye strain
Carpal tunnel syndrome caused by the overuse of a controller or computer mouse
No comments:
Post a Comment