Intellectual Property
Rights: Intellectual property rights are the rights given to someone over
the creation from their own minds. These rights are used to give the person
exclusive ownership over there creation for a certain amount of time. This
links into copyright that is a legal concept that grants the creator exclusive
rights to the use and distribution for a limited time of their product. Design
rights are also important as they protect the visual design of objects.
Permissions: If
you wanted to use certain content that is already being used on another
website, you will need to be granted permission to use this content from the
source. In order to gain permission from the source, communication such as an
email could be used which then could be saved as evidence. If you was to use
some content from another website without getting there permission, this could
be classed as a criminal offence and legal action could be taken.
Libel: Libel,
which can also refer to defamation, is when a false statement is written that
may harm the reputation of an individual, business, product, group, government,
religion or nation. This is vital that no libel content appears on the website
as this could lead to legal action being taken.
Race Relations Act: The
Race Relation Act 2000 outlines that it is illegal to discriminate against
someone of a different racial background (race, nationality, colour, or ethnic
origin). Therefore, someone should not be treated differently to anyone else
according to their religion, culture, race etc.
Obscene Publications
Act: This act is to prevent any content on a website which may cause
offence to the audience. This could be content such as pornography, strong
violence and offensive language. This is valid in web design as it will stop
the audience from displaying certain content.
Computer Misuse Act: This
act can result in people being prosecuted for a number of things when misusing
a computer. The type of things that are illegal when using a computer is
hacking into other people’s private accounts/systems, helping someone else gain
access or misusing protected software.
Data Protection Act: When
using the internet, it may ask you to enter personal details in certain
situations such as when you are purchasing an item or signing up for a
newsletter etc. This is where the Data Protection Act was put into places as
this protects the individual’s personal information and stops others from
accessing this information such as the government, organisations and other
businesses. If anyone wants to use any data for a specific reason, they will
need to follow certain protocols, this can be to use the data lawfully and
fairly, it is accurate and not modified, it is secure and is kept no longer
than needs be.
Accessibility: Accessibility
within a website means that the website should be accessible to everyone.
People who may have certain disabilities need to be able to understand,
navigate around and interact with the website. This can also relate to the
older generation who may find it difficult to use a website and to navigate
around it. People may also struggle with reading the content on the screen and
therefore a solution for this would be to have a voice over reading the content
on the page.
Contracts: There
are many different contracts that can be put in place when receiving a job in
the web industry. Full time and part time employment are available however;
there are different types of contracts that are also used. There are fixed term
contracts where a company will hire you for a fixed amount of time, for example
12 months. These contracts tend to be used when the company are not guaranteed jobs
and can hire people for a certain amount of time. Quite a lot of jobs related
to the web industry such as web designers are freelance which means that a
company will hire them for a limited time. When companies are taking on new
jobs/projects, the majority of the time it will include a brief. There are
several different briefs available such as contractual, commission,
competition, tender etc. These briefs have to be followed and kept within the guidelines
of which the briefs states. If the contract of the brief is broken, this could
lead to legal issues.
