Laws that may constrain Designers

Obscene Publication:

The obscene publications act has been enforced since 1857 which states that no imagery that someone can read, see or hear should be allowed to be published that can deprave and corrupt. As the act isn’t at all precise on what exactly is obscene the laws have changed frequently since the first act has come about; the act of 1959 and 1964 are the two acts that are being used today. The acts still aren’t very clear as it is a matter of opinion on what the public feels is obscene and what isn’t; the law itself only states that it is an offence to publish (through gain or not) content that may corrupt or deprave; things that shouldn’t be shown for example can be graphic imagery such as necrophilia, rape and torture. For producing work that is of an obscene nature through a limited company, as a designer you can loose your rights to the company; for example: an advertisement for a Chanel Opium perfume showing an actress pretending to be dead. After the advertisement had been shown on billboards and through television adverts it had soon received so many complaints it had to be taken down. Other examples of this is a video game called Carmageddon that was banned from the UK in 1997 because the idea of the game was to run over as many people as possible to complete each level. The BBFC felt that the video game would corrupt people who played the game and it was banned from being released. If you release a piece of art or an advertisement through a small business then you can be fined and may face up to 2 years imprisonment for producing the work.

Data Protection Act:

The data protection act is a law enforcing that data that you might be holding about a customer or client such as an email address or even their bank details should be protected. Basically the act states that you must honour and protect people’s private details. The law explains rules that you must abide by such as that you shouldn’t disclose information to other people or a company of your customers without there consent, also that individuals have rights to the information held about them and that personal information shouldn’t be kept longer than necessary; such as tax details should be kept up to 6 years. Offences towards the data protection act are unlawful obtaining; such as hackers and impersonators to obtain other peoples personal data. People that obtain personal data through hacking etc. can face anything up to a fine to a prison sentence. An example of someone breaking the data protection act was when the government lost two computer discs holding personal details of families receiving child benefits; this included data such as names, addresses, dates of birth, national insurance numbers and bank details of over 25 million people.

Computer Misuse Act:

The computer misuse acts states that it is illegal to gain access illegally/unauthorised to data or hacking into programmes etc. This also includes the illegal downloading and copying of programmes. The computer misuse act was enforced in 1990 to prevent copyright infringement, viruses, using computer data for blackmailing or fraud, hacking and deleting or altering other people’s data. The maximum sentence for breaking the act could be anything from 6 months to 2 years in prison which was stated in 2004, which has now been requested to increase from 5 years to a maximum of 10 years. The government is led to believe that most of the people violating the computer misuse act are students at colleges and universities that are copying and downloading programmes such as Photoshop and music illegally.

Intellectual Property Rights:

The intellectual property rights is a law that relates to creations of the mind such as literature, artistic works, music, inventions, symbols, images, names of companies and bands etc., designs that are used for commercial reasons, this also includes copyright, trademarks, patents and other related rights. Through intellectual rights law the creator or holder of one of these ideas has certain rights related to their created work.

Copyright – gives the creator of an original piece of work exclusive rights for a certain amount of time in relation to their work. Copyright is applied to any created idea. The idea of the copyright law is to allow the creator to receive profit from their work and so that other people that may copy won’t receive the money the real designer should be earning.

Trademark – the law considers trademark to be a form of copyright. Trademark covers designs such as a device, a brand, label, signature, name, shape of goods, packaging, colours such as Orange, or any combination which distinguishes goods.

Patent – this is a set of rights granted to the inventor for a fixed period of time in exchange for the work of the designer to a company to distribute their invention. A patent gives the right to prevent and exclude others from making, using and selling the invention.

Obtaining Permission:

Obtaining permission means getting permission granted to use copyright material. This is often needed when creating course material and web sites. You should obtain permission when you use work in a way that may infringe exclusive rights granted to a copyright holder; this includes: reproducing part of the copyrighted work outside the boundaries of acceptable fair use.

Libel:

Libel is the written version of defamation; which is an act of unjustified injury of a person of company that has a good reputation. Libel can be written down anywhere such as through email, bulletin boards and websites. These damages to a company can be resorted in the person who made the allegations being sued, but this however resorts on how wide spread the allegations have been; such as if they had been published in a well bought newspaper. Writing libel claims of someone could affect there future career and it can also affect the person making the claims; they too could fall foul to the libel laws.

Race Relations Act:

The race relations act was established in 1965 to prevent discrimination to people of different races; this includes: discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, nationality, ethnic and national origin in the employment area, education and public functions. The act also established the commission for racial equality after reviewing the legislation. In the terms of a designer this means that all races should be put into account. A good example of this is Leicestershire county councils pamphlets and leaflets that are written in almost every European language.

Accessibility:

Accessibility is a general term used to describe the degree in which a product is accessible to as many people as possible, including those that are disabled. Accessibility is related strongly to universal design. This is about making products accessible to people whether they may be disabled or not. Because a lot of designs have been made to be universal; they are often very similar in design; example: the on button symbol etc.

Contracts:

A contract is an agreeable amount of promises made between two people or two companies which refrain. The contract will then be enforceable in a court of law. Most contracts can be made through a written copy which must be signed; such as buying a house where as most are spoken such as purchasing an item when shopping.
There are different types of contracts which can be made:
One-off Contracts: these are contacts to meet a specific need or demand and are short-term. They supply goods or services to meet individual’s requirements.
Renewable Contracts: these are contracts for services required on a regular basis and are usually let over a longer period of time for example schools.
Framework Arrangements: this is a contract where the terms and conditions are agreed with the supplier. This then allows call-offs to be made without the need to go through formal process. The contracts is usually 2-3 years with a disclosed option to extend the contract if need be.
Partnership Arrangements: this is where the county council seeks to develop a relationship based on partnership principles with a supplier; there by sharing the costs and risks involved.

Ethical Constraints:
Authorship and Ownership Issues:

Some contributors feel possessive over some material such as templates, articles, images and essays etc. This means that any material you may find and may use you shouldn’t sign your name to. This is because your work will be credited for what someone else has produced which is violating the ownership/authorship to the work.

Representation:

Race: representation of race in the media can consist of the same sort of stereotypes that constitute gender portrayal. Stereotyping of race is seen as more harmful, as media that may be produced can harm a certain audience such as an ethnic group. This is the same with if you stereotype gender or even age.

Blasphemy:

Blasphemy through work in design might offend people with strict religions. Say if your target audience is a Christian following then producing work to suit your target audience can’t be anything that may offend their religion.