Intellectual Property Rights and Their Practical Use
Intellectual property rights are a combination of civil law governing relations connected with creative activity. At the same time, the civil law does not directly regulate creative activities, because the creative process is beyond the limits of its rules (HG, n.d.). The functions of civil law are the recognition of the authorship of already created results of creative activity, establishing their legal status, moral and material incentives and protection of the rights of authors and other persons, who have copyrights (Cimoli et al., 2014).
Copyright, inventive and the like rights are usually called exclusive rights, i.e., absolute legal rights, providing their carriers with powers to perform different actions with simultaneous prohibition of all other persons to perform mentioned actions. Exclusive copyright and similar rights (right to an invention, industrial design, innovation, etc.) arose as a reaction of the law to the massive use of commodity-money relations in the spiritual realm that allows putting an equal sign between the exclusive right and ownership right. However, intellectual property has its significant peculiarity that is intangible nature of intellectual property rights, the creative nature of the work on their conception, i.e. an institution of ownership on intangible goods of its subjects. Here, the classic triad of proprietary rights, exercising ordinary property rights, is not applicable, because, alienating, for example, the object of its intellectual property, its creator is not deprived thereby of any right to it, and the purchaser does not receive the opportunity at own discretion to modify the object, and generally considers it exclusively personal. Especially, as a rule, not intellectual property rights become the property of other people, but the material objects of scientific and technical ideas and artistic images (specific paintings, publications, technical documentation, etc.). Thus, the essence of intellectual property rights is the intangible nature of their objects (Cimoli et al., 2014).
The content of the intellectual property rights consists of the moral (spiritual property) and related property rights of its subjects. Specificity of the content of intellectual property rights is twofold structure and that property rights are not just related to the moral rights, but they come from moral rights and are based on the spiritual property of creators.
It is worth mentioning that the modern sport is not only the scope of the great achievements and demonstration of large capacity of the human body, it is also the scope of the big financial interests. The intellectual component of today acquires special importance in this area as intellectual property, bringing huge profits, are not only created in it, but also widely used (Hylton, 2011). So, the special need for legal regulation of intellectual property exists in the field of sport, since it has much more frequent cases of unfair competition affecting the intellectual property rights of legal entities of sports. This situation is largely due to the fact that the development of technical means is at a high level, which in turn allows freely recording and then using the results of intellectual activity in various sports before the submission of the results of the official sporting events (Blackshaw, 2011). In such circumstances, adequate legal provision of the consolidation of the creative results of sports activities, contributing their reliable protection, is particularly important. However, there is currently no legal framework regulating the creative aspects of the relations and the rights of authors of intellectual property in relation to the field of sport. In legal science, these issues are not covered and studies on specifics of regulation of intellectual property rights in the sports field are virtually absent (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2014).
It should be noted that some sports require the obligatory presence of sport and creative part, when the athletic performance is achieved during the performance of original sports product by an athlete in a competition. Thus, an athlete and authors have relations with the results of their intellectual activity. For example, from the sporting point of view in the competition of synchronized swimming almost all teams perform in the program the same technical elements, but the way these elements are connected, under which music they are performed and the look athletes have during performance, individualize them and form creative nature of the activity. At the same time, similar in the technical part synchronized platform diving do not have the creative part, a question of intellectual property rights is out here. In this case, it is about the creation of the creative product as an object of copyright. However, the difficulty lies primarily in the fact that the legislation of different countries does not provide a definition of the concept of “creative product”, even though scientists have repeatedly raised the issue of the need for the study of the concept and to develop a common approach to its definition (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2014).
Thus, sport creative product can be seen as a copyright object on the grounds that it complies with the conditions for eligibility – expressed in an objective form and is the result of creative activity. Also, performed sport creative product can be considered as an object of intellectual property rights to the results of performing activities, for which athletes have exclusive rights. It is necessary to note the feature of some sports like the performance of the sports creative product by several athletes, whereby they have related rights in the joint performance. Another feature of sports and creative activities is the participation in the conception of the creative product, as a rule, of choreographer, coach and the athletes themselves, and therefore we have the relations of co-authorship (Thornton, Champion and Ruddell, 2011).
Trademark and Its Practical Use
The system of sports industry manufacturers of certain products and services includes many hundreds of thousands of sports clubs, businesses and organizations. All of them deliver products on the market of varying quality, with their own characteristics and peculiarities. Often the consumer is lost in such a wide variety and has problems with the selection. In order to help the consumer to choose a product or service, the manufacturer (product) should be personalized, given it personality traits and proper image. For this, it must be associated with any image, a symbol, a music or sound, in other words, with a specific trademark. This problem is solved in two stages, namely the title of manufacturer or product is “sealed” with a particular trademark and then anchored in the minds of consumers a pair “brand-manufacturer” is complemented by positive background via means of advertising, promotion and other instruments. These measures greatly facilitate the task of the manufacturer to the implementation of an existing product. In addition, under the auspices of own promoted brand it is much easier to market new products (Wong, 2010).
A trademark is a means of individualization of the company as well as of produced goods or services (Kalamadi, 2012). It is believed that the main function of trademarks is to promote the products to the markets and protect them from counterfeiting. In fact, it is not. The functions of trademarks are much broader and more diverse. The main ones are presented below:
Contracts and Their Practical Use
A characteristic feature of the sport is its autonomy – independence from state authorities and self-regulation – relationships in the field of sport are governed on the basis of regulations adopted by international and national sports NGOs. Take as example the most popular sport – football, which main regulator at the international level is the international Football Association (FIFA) and the national football federations regulate relations in a particular state (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2014).
In exemplary contracts, forms of which are approved by the national sports federations, it states that a contract regulates the employment relationship between the athlete and the club (the typical contract between a professional and a club-pro football player, hockey standard contract and other documents). Thus, a sports contract is a written agreement between an athlete and a sports club, in which labor relations occur between these entities (Swayne and Dodds, 2011).
One of the main distinguishing features of the sports and the contract is the presence of limitations of personal moral rights of the athlete. Such restrictions include a ban on the consumption of alcohol and tobacco products (both at workplace and in free time); ban on exceeding the previously recorded body weight; ban on the use of doping substances; ban on talks with other sports clubs on the conclusion of the contract; a number of other restrictions (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2014). Secondly, the feature of the contract is to define the sport-time of athlete, during which an athlete prepares for a competition and takes part in competitions. Preparing for a competition of athlete as an employee of the club includes daily exercises directly on the playing field, physical education classes and classes on theoretical training. In addition, the athlete is required to undergo periodic medical examinations and take part in pre-season training camp, to perform other duties related to the preparation for the competition. The participation of an athlete in the competition is the inclusion of an athlete to apply for a specific event (Football Championship, UEFA Champions League, etc.), enabling the athlete to apply for a particular match of the corresponding tournament, being directly involved in this match, as well as the passage of post-match procedures (doping screening, communication with journalists, and others) (Swayne and Dodds, 2011). Third, the typical contract of professional football club and the player indicates that its sides need to resolve disputes between them exclusively in the organs of football justice (disciplinary bodies of professional league, FFU, UEFA, FIFA, etc.). The presence of these provisions is the result of the global and European regulatory practice of sports relations between the club and the athlete, in general, and the disputes between them, in particular, which seek to ensure that disputes are dealt with special sporting authorities (sports arbitration) (Cimoli et al., 2014).
Thus, a sports contract is a written agreement, the conclusion of which results in the relations arise between the sports club and athlete, which aim at the achievement of specific athletic performance by a sports club, by bringing an athlete in the preparation and participation in sports, for what an athlete receives a fixed size of remuneration.
Key Areas of Sport Sponsorship Agreement
Sponsorship contributions (financial contributions to property, intellectual property, services) are a payment for advertising and sponsor and sponsored entity respectively act as an advertiser and advertisement. That is, sponsorship is not gratuitous charity, but paid communication with a unique audience. For the sponsoring side, it is important that the active participation in a particular event allows conveying the “message” to a clearly defined target audience and influence its attitude to promote the brand. In turn, the sponsored side receives funds that enable it to perform the full range of work required for the event, as well as to prepare the material and technical base and hire qualified staff (Thornton, Champion and Ruddell, 2011). The main areas tend to be covered by sport sponsorship agreement include parties involved in the contract and how they are defined, what their role is; what is the overall goal of sponsorship as defined by its cause; the choice of the legal field; delineation of the territory of the sponsorship activities, related legal aspects; financing conditions; how products of the sponsor will be marked; media commitments; exclusive cooperation; responsibilities for monitoring the results of cooperation (forms and methods of monitoring); methods of risk management; the order of refund and penalties in case of non-compliance with the conditions of contract by one party; and the period, during which the contract is valid (if a contract is short-term, the procedure for making any additional articles and updates of the contents of individual items should be defined, if a contract is long-term, it is necessary to determine the order of exclusion of certain articles) (Wong, 2010).
Successful Outcomes in Effective Sport Sponsorship Program
Presentation of prizes to winners of the competition is an effective PR-action. In this case, the products of the company, which established the prize, are strongly associated with such concepts as a victory, leadership, championship. All spectators present in the stadium see the ceremony, and therefore the probability that the overall emotional growth of fans will help secure stable positive associations with the brand increases by an order (García, 2011).
For example, IBM supports the Wimbledon Tennis Association and the Wimbledon tennis tournament, because IBM is impressed by the spirit of competition and the desire for high achievement. Ford sponsors the Champions League, because fans tend to get to the competition venue by car. Hence, social status and income level of the target audience open up prospects for the successful promotion of the brand in the activities of the League. In these examples using the strategy of NLP can be seen, which is called “tuning”. Advertising brand for a considerable period of time accompanies target audience, adjusting to its interests and values in order to establish the necessary link, to become something close and familiar. Sponsorship is good as it gives a unique opportunity to get close to the audience, in the “circle of friends”, to set the maximum confidence contact (Cimoli et al., 2014).
References
Blackshaw, I. S. (2011). Sports Marketing Agreements: Legal, Fiscal and Practical Aspects. The Hague: ASSER International Sports Law Series.
Cimoli et al. (2014). Intellectual Property Rights: Legal and Economic Challenges for Development (Initiative for Policy Dialogue). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
García, G. R. (2011). He Shoots, He Scoresand Receives Copyright Protection? How the Current State of Intellectual Property Law Fumbles with Sports. [online]. Available from http://www.law.du.edu/documents/sports-and-entertainment-law-journal/issues/11/Garcia-FINAL-Online-Version.pdf [Accessed: January 2, 2016]
HG (n.d.). Intellectual Property Law. [online]. Available from http://www.hg.org/intell.html [Accessed: January 2, 2016]
Hylton, J. G. (2011). The Over-Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in Sport in the United States and Elsewhere, Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport, 21(1), p. 43-73.
Kalamadi, Sh. (2012). Intellectual Property and the Business of Sports Management, Journal of Intellectual Property Rights, 17, p. 437-442.
Mullin, B. J., Hardy, S. and Sutton, W. (2014). Sport Marketing. Champaign: Human Kinetics.
Swayne, L. E. and Dodds, M. (2011). Encyclopedia of Sports Management and Marketing. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.
Thornton, P. K., Champion, W. T. and Ruddell, L. S. (2011). Sports Ethics for Sports Management Professionals. Burlington: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Wong, G. M. (2010). Essentials of Sports Law. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.
