Calum Rogers 31/10/204
Legislation
Copyright is the exclusive legal right that is given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material. Copyright impacts the design process as this means that people need to make sure that once they have created an original design then they will need to get it copyrighted before a competitor steals their designs.
Moral rights are rights given to the creators of copyrighted works that is generally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and in some common law jurisdictions. Moral rights include the right of attribution, the right to have a work published anonymously or pseudonymously and the right to the integrity of the work. Moral rights impact the design process as it gives more power to the creators of copyrighted works more power in law, because the creators of copyrighted works now have the power publish anonymously or pseudonymously and the right to the integrity of their own work.
Intellectual property rights are legally recognized exclusive rights to creations of the mind. Intellectual property law states that, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, artistic works, discoveries, inventions, words, phrases, symbols and designs. Common types of intellectual property rights include copyright, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights, trade dress and in some jurisdictions trade secrets. Intellectual property rights impact the design process as the owners of intellectual property have more power within the law, because the owners of intellectual property are given exclusive rights to their designs and this gives them complete control over their intellectual property.
Copyright does not protect names in their own right, but trading names will automatically be subjected to 'passing off' rules. Passing off legislation is designed to prevent people or companies from poaching trade from a competitor by presenting itself in a way that makes their customers believe that they are dealing with the more established company, therefore the passing off legislation protects companies names as it prevents other companies from using the name of a more established company to increase their business. A logo that includes artistic artistic or design elements is legally seen as being a work of artistic creation and therefore is protected under copyright law. A copyright is an automatic international right, therefore it follows that unauthorized copying of a logo would be an infringement.
The Privacy Act is a law which regulates the handling of personal information about individuals including, the collection, use, storage and disclosure of personal information. The Privacy Act impacts market research activity as it will make it harder for a company to identify a target market because when a business conducts market research they want to find out what group of people would buy their new products and clearly the Privacy Act could prevent people from identifying their target market as the collecting and handling of personal information is being regulated. Another legislation that was drafted to protect the personal information of people is the Data Protection Act 1998, the Data Protection Act controls how peoples personal information is used by businesses or other establishments. The Data Protection Act provides strict guidelines for how to use a persons personal information e.g. personal information should be kept for no longer than it is absolutely necessary and personal information should be used in a way that is adequate, relevant and not excessive. The Data Protection Act also impacts market research activity as businesses are limited to how they can use the information they collect in their market research. Crucially the Data Protection Act provides stronger legal protection for more sensitive information e.g. ethnicity and health. This increase in stronger legal protection for information such as ethnicity could make it harder for a company to identify a specific target market, also a company could possibly end up insulting a certain ethnic background with a new product if they have not put in extensive market research to that ethnic background.
Ethical Issues
One of the main ethical issues that impacts the design industry is to take advantage of clients, occasionally a designer will be given the privilege to work with a client that is generally very agreeable and positive with what you have to say. Crucially the ethical issues lies in how a designer would deal with such an agreeable client as it is very tempting for some designers to take advantage of their goodwill. These clients specifically may not complain if a designer misses a deadline or doesn't do everything they are asked to do and they will still pay on time. Clearly it would be ethically wrong to not focus all your effort on this client just because he wont complain, also it would be ethically wrong to focus all your time and energy on a bad client just because he is constantly complaining about your work and asking for it to be changed. Another fairly obvious ethical issue within the design industry is that of overcharging, for the most of the time a client wont know how much time/effort you put into their specific project and therefore they will not be able to forecast the bill that you will charge them for their work, clearly this means you could potentially charge more than a your standard charge because the client has no idea how much the bill will be. Another ethical issue could be using another design as a form of template for your design, this could involve a website designer seeing a website that they like and deciding to use the design of that website as a template on which to design a new website. It is unlikely that this infringes any copyright law as the designer has adapted the design to fit his new website however the designer still used another designers website as inspiration for his new website.
As a designer one of the key issues that can affect me is that a client may not provide you with the necessary images or pieces of information to use when I am creating a website, this means that if I were to start designing a new website for a client then I will require information about their company and images of them to put on their new website, This is a key problem that effects me most days and the most common solution is to simply use stock images and create generic pieces of text and to avoid any specifics about the company. Unfortunately this solution is not popular amongst everyone, specifically clients as they do not appreciate the fact that I am not being specific towards their company and therefore clearly they are not getting what they pay for as they expected a website that sells their company and their product, therefore the use of stock images and generic pieces of text do not sell their company specifically. However the main problem is that I am not being supplied with the relevant information and therefore I am having to design a website with only the information I have available to me and this often upsets the client. Another key issue that affects me in the design industry is what should we do for the client's budget, this means that the amount of work I do for a client depends on how much money they are paying us. Crucially if a new client decides to pay us £5 a month for our services then I will design them a new website from scratch but I may not go the extra mile to make sure their website is as nice as the website I designed for our client that pays us £50 a month. If a client paid us £50 a month then I would probably make that project my top priority and ensure that the website I designed meets all of their demands. Whereas if a client is only paying us £5 a month then im not sure he is really paying for my complete undived attention on his website and therefore I believe I am asked to spend more time on the client's website that pays us more money. I believe the idea is, if I build a good website for the client then we can ask him to increase his budget and in return I will spend more time on his website and I will work to make sure his website gets on to page 1 of Google, alot like the client who pays £50 a month's website.
Copyright, moral rights and intellectual property in design industry.
Legislation
Copyright is the exclusive legal right that is given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material. Copyright impacts the design process as this means that people need to make sure that once they have created an original design then they will need to get it copyrighted before a competitor steals their designs.
Moral rights are rights given to the creators of copyrighted works that is generally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and in some common law jurisdictions. Moral rights include the right of attribution, the right to have a work published anonymously or pseudonymously and the right to the integrity of the work. Moral rights impact the design process as it gives more power to the creators of copyrighted works more power in law, because the creators of copyrighted works now have the power publish anonymously or pseudonymously and the right to the integrity of their own work.
Intellectual property rights are legally recognized exclusive rights to creations of the mind. Intellectual property law states that, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, artistic works, discoveries, inventions, words, phrases, symbols and designs. Common types of intellectual property rights include copyright, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights, trade dress and in some jurisdictions trade secrets. Intellectual property rights impact the design process as the owners of intellectual property have more power within the law, because the owners of intellectual property are given exclusive rights to their designs and this gives them complete control over their intellectual property.
Copyright does not protect names in their own right, but trading names will automatically be subjected to 'passing off' rules. Passing off legislation is designed to prevent people or companies from poaching trade from a competitor by presenting itself in a way that makes their customers believe that they are dealing with the more established company, therefore the passing off legislation protects companies names as it prevents other companies from using the name of a more established company to increase their business. A logo that includes artistic artistic or design elements is legally seen as being a work of artistic creation and therefore is protected under copyright law. A copyright is an automatic international right, therefore it follows that unauthorized copying of a logo would be an infringement.
The Privacy Act is a law which regulates the handling of personal information about individuals including, the collection, use, storage and disclosure of personal information. The Privacy Act impacts market research activity as it will make it harder for a company to identify a target market because when a business conducts market research they want to find out what group of people would buy their new products and clearly the Privacy Act could prevent people from identifying their target market as the collecting and handling of personal information is being regulated. Another legislation that was drafted to protect the personal information of people is the Data Protection Act 1998, the Data Protection Act controls how peoples personal information is used by businesses or other establishments. The Data Protection Act provides strict guidelines for how to use a persons personal information e.g. personal information should be kept for no longer than it is absolutely necessary and personal information should be used in a way that is adequate, relevant and not excessive. The Data Protection Act also impacts market research activity as businesses are limited to how they can use the information they collect in their market research. Crucially the Data Protection Act provides stronger legal protection for more sensitive information e.g. ethnicity and health. This increase in stronger legal protection for information such as ethnicity could make it harder for a company to identify a specific target market, also a company could possibly end up insulting a certain ethnic background with a new product if they have not put in extensive market research to that ethnic background.
Ethical Issues
One of the main ethical issues that impacts the design industry is to take advantage of clients, occasionally a designer will be given the privilege to work with a client that is generally very agreeable and positive with what you have to say. Crucially the ethical issues lies in how a designer would deal with such an agreeable client as it is very tempting for some designers to take advantage of their goodwill. These clients specifically may not complain if a designer misses a deadline or doesn't do everything they are asked to do and they will still pay on time. Clearly it would be ethically wrong to not focus all your effort on this client just because he wont complain, also it would be ethically wrong to focus all your time and energy on a bad client just because he is constantly complaining about your work and asking for it to be changed. Another fairly obvious ethical issue within the design industry is that of overcharging, for the most of the time a client wont know how much time/effort you put into their specific project and therefore they will not be able to forecast the bill that you will charge them for their work, clearly this means you could potentially charge more than a your standard charge because the client has no idea how much the bill will be. Another ethical issue could be using another design as a form of template for your design, this could involve a website designer seeing a website that they like and deciding to use the design of that website as a template on which to design a new website. It is unlikely that this infringes any copyright law as the designer has adapted the design to fit his new website however the designer still used another designers website as inspiration for his new website.
As a designer one of the key issues that can affect me is that a client may not provide you with the necessary images or pieces of information to use when I am creating a website, this means that if I were to start designing a new website for a client then I will require information about their company and images of them to put on their new website, This is a key problem that effects me most days and the most common solution is to simply use stock images and create generic pieces of text and to avoid any specifics about the company. Unfortunately this solution is not popular amongst everyone, specifically clients as they do not appreciate the fact that I am not being specific towards their company and therefore clearly they are not getting what they pay for as they expected a website that sells their company and their product, therefore the use of stock images and generic pieces of text do not sell their company specifically. However the main problem is that I am not being supplied with the relevant information and therefore I am having to design a website with only the information I have available to me and this often upsets the client. Another key issue that affects me in the design industry is what should we do for the client's budget, this means that the amount of work I do for a client depends on how much money they are paying us. Crucially if a new client decides to pay us £5 a month for our services then I will design them a new website from scratch but I may not go the extra mile to make sure their website is as nice as the website I designed for our client that pays us £50 a month. If a client paid us £50 a month then I would probably make that project my top priority and ensure that the website I designed meets all of their demands. Whereas if a client is only paying us £5 a month then im not sure he is really paying for my complete undived attention on his website and therefore I believe I am asked to spend more time on the client's website that pays us more money. I believe the idea is, if I build a good website for the client then we can ask him to increase his budget and in return I will spend more time on his website and I will work to make sure his website gets on to page 1 of Google, alot like the client who pays £50 a month's website.
