Legislation and the Creative Industries
As mentioned back in Task 5, there's a lot of different legislation that can have impact on both businesses as a whole and businesses within the creative industries. However, I've found that quite a few of these pieces of legislation I've gone over have little to no impact on the way my business will operate.
Intellectual Property
As my business is focused around writing original pieces of writing, they will be pieces of intellectual property of my own creation. This will therefore protect me from having my work stolen or copied by other writers. However, there's a slight snag in the form of the ideas not coming directly from me. While I can add my own twists and unique touch to the brief given, the general idea of the story comes from my clients. I feel the best way to sort this out is to give my clients permission to keep, share and show others the work I produce as long as I'm credited fairly for actually writing it. This allows me to continue to hold my writings as my own IP while not acting as if I came up with the ideas myself.
Copyright
Just like above, my original pieces of written work will fall under copyright due to being pieces of written work written originally by me. However, I'll have to ensure that my clients have some form of involvement with the copyright as well, due to their ideas being the base for my stories. Having my clients use and share the stories (without claiming it as their own actual writing) is fine, seeing as it is their creativity that came up with the ideas and settings for the stories I write.
Trademarks
I don't believe I'll be able to hold trademarks for the pieces of writing I produce, as they'll fall under the regular forms of intellectual property and copyright. However, I could potentially register a trademark for the branding of my business, the name of my business and any potential slogans I decide on for the business. Trademarking these aspects of my business will give my enterprise a more personal identity, preventing others from taking my logo and business name for their own.
Talent and Location Releases
These two aspects of legislation have no impact on my business whatsoever, due to their relation to the film industry specifically rather than the creative industry as a whole. My writing business will not need to fill out any kind of location or talent release, therefore making these two bits of legislation unrelated to my business at all.
Filming and Performing in Public
Similarly to above, the bits of legislation regarding filming and performing in public have no importance for my enterprise for two reasons. First of all, my business is focused entirely on writing creative fiction, giving me no reason to need to film or perform anything in a public setting. Additionally, my business is going to mostly have an online presence rather than any in-person meetings, making most laws and regulations regarding public places unimportant for the running of my enterprise.
Child Labour Laws
Again, due to my business having no involvement with the film industry, I've got no need to hire a child for my work. While some of my clients may be minors, they will not be in any way 'employed' by me, and I therefore have no need to worry about breaking child labour laws. Additionally, I don't need to consider getting a performance license for a child for the same reasons - I have no reason to employ a child for my writing enterprise.
Public Liability Insurance
The final piece of legislation that has no bearing on my business is Public Liability Insurance. Once again, as my enterprise is going to mostly have an online presence rather than a public face-to-face operation, I'm very unlikely to injure someone in public due to the running of my business. Therefore, I've got no need to obtain Public Liability Insurance for my business.
GDPR
The General Data Protection Regulation actually has quite a lot of impact on my enterprise, due to it mostly being an online business. Seeing as most of the traffic for my business is going to come through my website, it's likely that I'll be liable for processing the data of the clients who come through the website to obtain my services. Therefore, I'll have to ensure that I record the process of how I obtain and manage their data in a reasonable, non-harmful way so that I can show accountability. Alongside all this, I'll have to follow the regulations for how I actually manage the data I receive from my customers - one of my values for my business is making my clients feel comfortable, which will be hard to do if they feel concerned about what is happening to their personal data. Therefore, I'd have to ensure I don't use their data for any nefarious means and not infringe on their privacy.
The Competition Act & The Enterprise Act
These two acts also have some impact on my business, due to its nature as a business, but not quite as much as the GDPR or Copyright laws. Seeing as my business is a business, there's the definite possibility of my business engaging in illegitimate mergers or using its position to fix prices and freeze competition - all of which would go against these two acts. In order to follow these acts to the letter, I simply have to avoid making any kind of shady deals and take full responsibility for the state of my business. If I end up in such a state where I might need to make a shady merger, I should have enough responsibility to either give up on the business or look for more legitimate means. Additionally, I have no intention of forming any kind of cartels or unfairly affecting my competition, as I've not got much direct competition in the local area anyway. With all this in mind, these two acts will certainly have an impact on how I run my business, but no more than most regular laws will have an impact - I've got no intention to break the law.
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