Legal obligations Report for Aardman Case study – Ivan Foy

Contractual -

Types of Contracts:

There are different types of contracts available. A contact is where there is an agreement or a
promise that the law can enforce. The law can change depending on what country you are in and
also what the actual law is. The contact can be signed by a person but it doesn’t always have to be
signed. As long as everybody involved agrees then its ok. A contact is normally done when you agree
to something for example, when somebody wants a phone on contact they go through all of the
details such as what phone, tariff and the cost will be. Once they have agreed on all of these details
the customer will then sign to agree that they are happy with everything. Once they sign the
contract they are in it until the end of the chosen period. If the customer wants out of the contract
then they have to pay off the remaining balance in full but this isn't always the case as not all
companies allow this.
Aardman will have different contracts with different companies. One company which Aardman have
a contract with is Data Return UK. This company is hosting Aardman's website.

Negotiating:
Accommodating – this is where someone who enjoys solving other people problems. They also help
preserve others personal relationships. The people that do this will be sensitive to the state of other
people's emotional status.
Avoiding – there are some companies that do not want to work with others unless they are needed
to. When they have to work together they will have to try and get along and agree with one another
but this isn't always the case.
Collaborating – this is for those that enjoy working with others doing work/business. This sort of
person will be pleased to work with new people and will enjoy having a challenge solving the
problems. They will negotiate and understand the concerns and the situations of others. This can be
a problem as they make things worse/ more difficult than they were before.
Competing – some people enjoy negotiating as it gives them an opportunity to be competitive with
others. People that are competitive will compete against others to gain the outcome which they
want.
Compromising - there are some people which are willing to negotiate to seal the deal within
contract. This way can be seen as fairer as both parties are getting what they want or are similar to
what each are wanting.

Non-Disclosure Agreements:
A non-disclosure agreement can also be known as the ‘confidential agreement, confidential
disclosure agreement, proprietary information agreement, or secrecy agreement. This type of
agreement is a contract between two people normally and will contain all of the details about the
contract. All of the information within this contract are between the people involved and only those
involved unless they wish to include someone else. There are two types of non-disclosure
agreements which are:
 1.Unilateral NDA – this is also known as a one-way agreement where one party wants to share
information with another party but cannot due to secretary.
2. Bilateral NDA - where both parties will be supplying information that is intended to remain secret.
This type of agreement is common when businesses are considering some kind of joint venture or
merger.

Costing:
Contract costing normally focuses more on high-value jobs. The high value jobs are those in a single
accounting period. There are normally different accounts for each part of the job. The financial
accounting focuses on the costs and the revenues when different goods have been provided. The
business will set a budget for the contractors when they are working out expenses for a job.
When you are given a brief it is important that you read through it carefully and that you understand
what the brief is and what the client wants from you and the brief. If it helps you to remember
important parts of the brief or if there is a part of the brief that you don't understand you could
always make some notes and speak to the client about any problems that you may have with the
brief. Another point you may be wary of is legal and ethical issues and if you feel that it is necessary
you may want to talk to a solicitor with this type of concern.
When meeting with the client it is a good idea to ask some questions you feel you need to answer
about the brief and the project. Here are some of the point you should be asking about;
Are there any specific points of the project that they want to highlight
• What is the productions time-scale?
• What is the budget for the project and is the budget realistic
• What does the client want
• Is there/Who is the target audience

Regulatory issues -
Freedom of Information:
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides public access to information held by public
authorities. The Freedom of Information Act 2000 is an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the
United Kingdom that creates a public "right of access" to information held by public authorities. It is
the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom on a national level.
The final version of the Act is believed to have been diluted from that proposed while Labour was in
opposition. The full provisions of the act came into force on 1 January 2005.
It does this in two ways:
•public authorities are obliged to publish certain information about their activities;
•members of the public are entitled to request information from public authorities.
The Act covers any recorded information that is held by a public authority in England, Wales and
Northern Ireland, and by UK-wide public authorities based in Scotland. Information held by Scottish
public authorities is covered by Scotland’s own Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

Censorship:
Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication which may be considered
objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by a
government, media outlet or other controlling body.
Media censorship takes many forms in the way you get your news. While news stories are often
edited for length, there are many choices that are made that are designed to keep some information
from becoming public. Sometimes these decisions are made to safeguard a person's privacy, others
to protect media outlets from corporate or political fallout.
Governments, private organizations and individuals may engage in censorship. When an author or
other creator engages in censorship of his or her own works, it is called self-censorship. Censorship
may be direct or it may be indirect, in which case it is called soft censorship.
On a different level, the actions and reactions of large corporations to the Internet has to be
factored into any discussion of economic censorship. Some firms have paid search engine companies
for preferential placement in particular subject categories when a user submits an online search
inquiry. Is the information tainted because someone has paid for it to be "found," or should the
standard be that so long as all responsive information is displayed to the user, placement is
irrelevant?

Because so many nations of the world are now considering the filtering system known as PICS
(Platform for Internet Content Selections) as an answer to their concerns, the question of parental
controls also must be addressed. In many countries, the state justifies censorship with the claim that
it is acting in loco parentis. Such claims, whether interpreted as "state as parent" or "state as Big
Brother," are responsible for many of the restrictions on information distribution found today across
the world.

Parental claims certainly have a place in the dialogue, but they can cut across meaningful lines of
discourse as well. Despite the presence of a widespread and deadly worldwide epidemic (AIDS),
there are parents who object to the teaching of safe sex models in public schools. Such objections
pose an obvious problem: do their rights as the parents of their own children supercede the rights of
all children in a classroom (or library, or online community) to have access to information that could
save their lives? The legal precedents, which usually provide clear guidelines in such matters, are
mixed here. Courts have ordered operations and vaccinations in the public health interest, but
courts have also ruled that religious beliefs are a compelling answer to public concerns. The question
is not whether there are legitimate parental claims, but rather at what point is there a public interest
that overrides them? Is it only in matters of imminent and life-threatening danger or does it extend
beyond that clearly delineated realm?

Taste and Decency:

When creating something for the interactive multimedia industry it needs to be decent for all
viewers. Some people may find certain things not decent so may get offended.
Decency in media is what bad language, violence and nudity with this there is something called the
taste and decency this is about what is viewable for viewers on videos and images.

It stops any sort of behaviour that seems threating, insulting or abusive when you are within hearing
or seeing distance of somebody that is likely to be caused harassment, distress or alarm.

So, this means that say if you were nude, doing your own thing and just chilling on the beach say, if
that beach were to be a "nude beach" then you won't have any problems, but if not then you are in
trouble due to law it counts as an offense well in the UK anyway resulting in getting arrested and
fined.
The other aspect that's related to this law is the sex offence act, this relates to sexual motives to
exposure somebody's genitals with intention that somebody will see them, this is very rare and only
works with thing that are related to nudists such as the annual nude bike ride....

When looking for assets related to my product I will have to follow these laws so that I don't cause
any issues for anybody.
There are certain things which may not be classed as decent for example;
• Obscenity
• Sedition
• Blasphemy
• Violence
• Bad language
• Explicit pictorial or video images
• Bigotry
• Nudity
When Aardman started creating products they would of needed to make sure that they were all
suitable to be shown to the public.

Trademark:
Now for those of you that don't know but currently in the UK there is a copyright law called the
copyright designs and patents act 1988, and what copyright really is, well it gives an author of some
material that they have "created" rights to control the use or any exploitation of the material that a
user has "created". This includes rights to authorise or prohibit the copying, issuing of copies,
adaptation or basically any sort of close similarity towards something of the copyright material.

Material which be able to be copyright protected are these categories:

Original literary, dramatic, musical and computer programs.

Sound recordings, films or broadcasts.

Typographical arrangements of published editions.

Copyright swings in when somebody or a company have a smashing idea and create a piece of work,
and then applies to the copyright HQ to see if somebody has already done it. If it’s a yes then you
take the work of shame back to work or if it’s a no then you can apply for a claim on the piece and
take ownership over it.

Some more fun for you about copyright so imagine, you’re an author and you have a wonderful idea
to write a book and you want to have it copyrighted, when you copyright the book you won't be
copyrighting the book but the content itself, this is called interpretation (long work I know right).

So, when somebody else wants to copyright their work in a book they can do so because if you
could copyright the idea of book would just be silly (and profitable), I mean people can write about
things that are similar within the book that you have written, but not directly the content that you
have written.

Ok now we are moving onto the good stuff so you know your name its perfect to you isn't, just a
name like Ivan for example.
Now imagine somebody said that you can't be called Ivan anymore because it's been copyrighted so
the 87k people (did my research) with that name will have to pick a new name for themselves which
is just silly, so for things like this the copyright law says that names, short phrases and colours are
not unique so they can't be covered, but creations can be so things like a logo.

You may not know I work at an agency where we employ freelancers to do some work for us and
sometimes they will produce a logo for a client and the client accepts it, what happens then does the
freelancer take rights over its creation or does the company that they are working for?

Well normally as an individual that authored the work, the rights will be yours, but if you work for a
company and create a logo that a client approves then you the creator don't actually, own the
rights... the company does.
Trademarks are used so that others know that another company has created that object.
Trademarks can either be text, symbols and even images. The trademark can only be used by the
original company who owns that trademark. An example would be the Apple on Apple products. The
Apple trademark shows that Apple have create this product and its theirs. The purpose for a
trademark is so that nobody can copy or take that creation otherwise if they do it could be taken to
court for copyright purposes. Samsung were taken to court as they had created a similar product so
the were sued by Apple and had to pay a lot of money to Apple.
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a recognizable sign, design or expression which identifies
products or services of a particular source from those of others. The trademark owner can be an
individual, business organization, or any legal entity. A trademark may be located on a package, a
label, a voucher or on the product itself. For the sake of corporate identity trademarks are also being
displayed on company buildings.

Intellectual Property:
Intellectual property stands for ‘IP’. There a number of different creations which set different rights.
The owner will have certain rights to different assets such as musical, literary, artistic work,
discoveries, words, phrases, symbols and also different designs. There are different types of
intellectual property rights such as; copyright, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights and trade
secrets.
Aardman may hire out different places and also equipment in which they won't have the rights to.
The owner will have the rights but Aardman will have to follow those rights to if needed.
The intellectual property rights are linked to copyright. The owners are given exclusive rights to their
work. The types of intellectual property rights are copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial design
rights and trade secrets. The owner has the right to take somebody to court if they have the same
name as their company if they have not registered their name.

Health & Safety Policy:

Health & Safety at Work Act (1974) – Under this Act of Parliament, employers are legally required to
do all that is possible to ensure the health and safety of their workers and the H&S of non-
employees such as visitors and students. The following regulations are procedures to safeguard the
risk of injury to people.
Health & Safety is obviously very important. Employers are legally required to minimise the risks for
employees, whereas employers have a duty of care when carrying out their jobs. Acting in an
irresponsible way could lead to injury or illness and is a criminal offence that could lead to
prosecution.
Health policy can be defined as the "decisions, plans, and actions that are undertaken to achieve
specific health care goals within a society." According to the World Health Organization, an explicit
health policy can achieve several things: it defines a vision for the future; it outlines priorities and
the expected roles of different groups; and it builds consensus and informs people.

Professional Bodies -
British Interactive Multimedia Association (BIMA):
The British Interactive Multimedia Association is also known as BIMA for short. The main things
which the BIMA do is support and promote the British digital industry, share knowledge and best
practice, reward great work and they also encourage the next generation to take part to continue
the great work of others and make the work even better.
There are different benefits of being in this association as there are many sectors. As there are many
different sectors this means that BIMA need to provide a valuable way to keep up with the
developments of other sectors. BIMA work with the government departments, professional bodies
to provide access to the markets. They will hold regular talks to talk about the key issues.
BIMA helps to cover four key things which are to support and promote the British Digital Industry,
share knowledge and best practice, reward great work and also encourage the next generation.
Aardman will have to comply with this organisation.

Professional body codes of practice:

A professional association is usually a non-profit organization seeking to further a particular
profession, the interests of individuals engaged in that profession, and the public interest. Workers
at Aardman could join this type of organisation.
All leading professional bodies, such as the IIA, have a code of conduct to guide the member and
raise the level of trust and confidence of the public in the profession. All members must express
their commitment to the code when they join the IIA and to subsequent changes to the code which
may be agreed from time to time. The rules and positions so with this the way that people look at
the professional body codes of practice and in doing so I can find the best sort of thing to cover and
focus on in doing so these non-profitable organizations can spread the word on what needs to be
looked and developed on and in doing so we can develop the needed parts that would require me to
focus, on what is truly required for me to go on and develop the needed parts and in doing so I could
create a wide range of aspects.
In doing so the task at hand can be focused on and will allow the main goals to be in the best public
interest and so with this different body codes and confidence of the public in the profession. All
members must express their commitment to the code when they join the IIA and to subsequent
changes to the code which may be agreed from time to time. The rules and procedures for dealing
with any allegation of infringement against the code are described in the Professional Complaints
Procedures. This code and the procedures are available to the public.

Ethical -
Ethical requirements:
Now on this topic I will be talking about the ethical requirements there are always restrictions when
creating any part of media production. The restrictions are there to help me so that I know what I
can and what I cannot do. The restrictions are there to help make sure that people are protected
against any racist comments that may offend people or cause any problems. The internet will have
different websites that do not do this which is a problem. Many people do this as they know that
they can do it anonymously. Even though people think that they cannot be tracked down the can be.
Different restrictions apply for different uses e.g. media job roles, TV channels, radio presenters etc.
Many people that find something unacceptable on a website can sue the company for a lot of money
so companies have to be very careful about what they put on. These considerations can easily be
avoidable by:
• Not taking any pictures, videos or sound clips without permission of the owner which sometimes
may be needed in writing.
• Not making any verbal statements about any individual which is seen as abusive or harmful
towards them as this is known as slander.
• Not making any written statements about any individual which is seen as abusive or harmful
towards them as this is known as libel.
• Do not take any part of somebody's work without getting permission of that person as this would
be copyright.
• Be careful when you represent and describe the content and characters in work as you must
make sure that you are unbiased and accurate.

Social issues and sensitivities:

Moving onto social issues and sensitives this topic is all about what is Whenever people are working
with multimedia world, them MUST still obey all laws that you do in day to day life. The internet is
not a place where people can write what they want to anybody; if they are breaking the law in doing
so such as making racist remarks they will face the same legal action as they would if they had said
the same in person. Although on the internet comments can be made anonymously and easily, the
internet can be tracked any illegal comments are not allowed to be published on the internet. In
most cases such as work in the television industry, more laws apply that do normally. In fact, you can
be sued a lot of money for making racist remarks on television.
The definition of personal data is data which relates to a living individual who can be identified from
that data, or from that data and other information which is in the possession of, or is likely to come
into the possession of, the data controller Sensitive personal data concerns the subject's race,
ethnicity, politics, religion, trade union status, health, sex life or criminal actions and so with this the
data can be easily stored in different sections and be used for later use and in doing so I would be
able to get on with a few other aspects.

Representation of gender:
Now for gender I will use this example to help me expand the ideas of gender so for gender
representation in media can sometimes be used to stereotype people types for this example
genders:

In The Big Bang Theory there is a women character who is smart but dull and that most of the time
she isn't funny and is mostly funny for the audience laughing at her. This can be represented to the
audience that smart women are dull and are not funny at all, when that is completely wrong and
that some women can be funny and be smart at the same time.

So, as you can already see media shapes our concepts of being a male or a female, we do see a vast
range of people with different genders every day on media but what is key is their roles such as
when you think of a body builder you think of a huge muscular man but not a woman and why is
that?

But when you think of a role like a teacher you think of both genders it very strange, but these days
when we think of a male we see that they are tough, hard and sweaty and a woman soft, fragile and
fragrant.
What the media is trying to do now is thin the line on these two ideas by creating characters in
movies that are different and would surprise people now (when we shouldn't be).

Again, I will have to make sure I look for images with a mixed amount of genders when creating my
product so that I don't cause any offence between the two genders.
Aardman doesn’t seem prejudice towards any race, gender or Religious, they need to make sure that
any images on humans modelling the clothing/equipment represent the bigger picture.
Aardman have to make sure that all the models are varying in race and ethnic origin. They also have
to think about how promotional material will affect any religious groups.
To ensure that none of them get offended by promotional material, particularly when Aardman
products are World-Wide, and being delivered to every major country in the world, Aardman will
need to work on not offending anyone's beliefs or are gender specific, otherwise this could lead to
some social media outrage.

Representation of religious beliefs:

For religion, media hasn’t always been fair in the past but present day has allowed wide range of
religions to show up expanding our views of the world and our understanding, unfortunately these
days stereotypes can be somewhat negative due to the outgoing war in countries like Afghanistan,
what the media is currently trying to do is begin to include a more diverse range of religions
including minor religion, normally movies and TV shows get more praise and awards for using a wide
range of beliefs along with using religious metaphors.

Now personally as a video game player I have come across a vast range of religions though playing
games such as the “legendary” call of duty where gunning down tourists is “fun”, but on the other
hand you have games like Civilization where it allows you to pick a religion for your empire and set
unique traits for the religion as well.

I have played a few fantasy role playing games where classes called “Priests” use things like praying,
smiting evil foes and calling down the heavens… If you can’t tell these aspects are related to
Christianity.

I am not sure how I am meant to include a range of religions within the product or even to just make
it friendly for all of them, but I will try my best to see how I can and keep on good terms for my client
and for the product.
Just like I said before Aardman doesn’t seem prejudice towards any race, gender or Religious, they
need to make sure that any images on humans modelling the clothing/equipment represent the
bigger picture.
To ensure that none of them get offended by promotional material, particularly when Aardman
products are World-Wide, and being delivered to every major country in the world, Aardman will
need to work on not offending anyone's beliefs or are gender specific, otherwise this could lead to
some social media outrage and some up roars in the regions being targeted.

Cultural issues and language:

Within multimedia design I feel that in order to become better as a designer and as a person, you
must put aside cultural issues and differences as well as language otherwise we cannot more
forward this is the same with companies around the world including Aardman, I mean Aardman
already have adjusted to this which is why they are doing so well with it all and in doing so are on
top of their game with stop motion. Leading the world in their own craft.
This aspect will be mastered my most international companies and in doing so they will earn cultural
and languages and in doing so will earn the respect of the different cultural and adjust their products
to suit the cultural.