Legal Issues

Legal Issues

Star wars copyright- A prop designer who made the original storm trooper helmets for Star Wars has won his copyright battle with director George Lucas over his right to sell replicas. Andrew Ainsworth spent half a decade and almost £700,000 fighting Lucas' legal team. He felt that it is hard to accept when something you have created is taken away from you and you don't get the recognition you deserve.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12910683

Intellectual Property- Most businesses rely on bright ideas whether it is a new product, recognisable brands or nice designs. 

How do you protect your ideas from being exploited by others?

Intellectual property known as the IP law. There are 4 main types of the IP law:

• Trademarks
• Copy Rights
• Design Rights
• Patent

Trademarks are used by businesses to protect there product ideas. Trademarks can be valuable assets to a business and only have to be renewed every ten years and can only be applied to a name or logo or both.

Copyrights exist in documents, maps, photos, plans and websites. A copyright lasts up to 70 years after your life time so it is a long term asset.

if people buy your product they will want to know about design rights. Design Rights are registered. If it is not registered you will have unregistered design rights that are free and you might not know about it.

Patent can last up to 20 years but registering it can be complicated and is an expensive process but it is beneficial because you can get professional advice.




Freedom of Information Act-  The Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides public access to information held by public authorities.

It does this in two ways:

• public authorities are obliged to publish certain information about their activities; and
• members of the public are entitled to request information from public authorities.

Data Protection Act- UK law mandates that all businesses must have 8 principles to follow. The average person in the UK has 4000 pieces of data collected and stored by businesses in databases. Customer data is the lifeblood of every business on the planet. The information needs to be processed fairly and securely. The businesses must require the Data subjects concent, should only be kept for the reason it was collected, should be kept accurate, should be kept up to date, should only be kept for as long as needed, should be made available to the data subject, should be processed securely and should be processed within the UK.


Copyright, designs and Patents act 1988- Existing Media can be recreated in anyway you want. This law only applied to publishers and the film industry in the past. Nowadays it applies whenever someone is attempting to download or copy something online because not everything is free or legal to take. We should respect people in the media or music industry by purchasing their products rather than illegally downloading it because they need to make money on their products.

Libel- When something is published about someone without evidence to back it up. This could be a defamation of someone's reputation put on display to the publics viewing.


Writer Jack Monroe has won £24,000 damages in a High Court libel action against columnist Katie Hopkins. She says Hopkins' tweets caused "serious harm" to her reputation. Last year Hopkins tweeted: "@MsJackMonroe scrawled on any memorials recently? Vandalised the memory of those who fought for your freedom. Grandma got any more medals?"


Jack Monroe says the tweet meant she had either vandalised a war memorial, and "thereby desecrated the memory of those who fought for her freedom and had committed a criminal act", or that she "condoned or approved" of the criminal vandalisation of a war memorial. Jack Monroe then tweeted after she won: "It's taken 21 months but today the High Court ruled that Hopkins statements to/about me were defamatory. I sued her for libel. and I won.


http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/katie-hopkins-loses-libel-tweets-10002993

Slander- The action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation.


The owners of a Layton Subway shop are suing the city for defamation after their employee was wrongly accused of drugging a police officer’s lemonade last year. Franchise owners Dallas Buttars and Kristin Myers say in the lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court that sales dropped off after police publicized the Aug. 8, 2016, drink-spiking allegation. They also say several employees of the the shop quit after being questioned by police. 



http://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/08/09/owners-of-a-subway-shop-in-utah-sue-for-defamation-in-what-police-once-said-was-a-soda-drugging-case/





Human Rights- The rights to keep a society fair, just and equal. This act protects all types of people. If someone is felt their rights are under attack they can go to the authorities because in the eye of the law it is frowned upon. In the past, the human rights law has been threatened such as the holocaust and when Kings and Queens ruled and chose who deserved rights or not. After World War II in 1948, all the european countries had a convention and discussed Human Rights. They put rights and not rulers at the heart of society. This included the right to live and how they want to live their life, the right to liberty and security, freedom of expression/speech. In 1998, parliament passed the Human Rights Act.  Public hospitality such as hospitals  and school are able to express their human rights and the people are entitled to compassion. Journalists cannot be forced to reveal their sources, soldiers must be given appropriate equipment to they are given a fair fighting chance, people are to be treated equally and if people are proven innocently, the police cannot keep their DNA on record. Human Rights are part of UK law and the British heritage.