Thursday 17 March 2011

RESEARCH: BBFC Certification

The BBFC (The British Board of Film Classification)
The BBFC is a non-governmental organisation in the UK that gives out certifications for media distributed in the UK. Unlike other international certifications it is a compulsory obligation for distributors to sell a game to a person of the right age. Where certifications issued by companies such as PEGI are simply advisory and are issued to advise consumers, BBFC targets the distributors.

History
The British board of film classification was formed in 1912 and was known as the British board of film censors this was because the film industry at the time preferred to manage the classification and censorship of their own films rather than have them enforced by governments, the BBFC do have power to fine and in extreme cases close down organisations who breach the regulations set organisation changed its name to the British board of film classification the BBFC were also used to prevent negative propaganda during the second world war, in 1984 the organisation changed it t to its current name the British board of film classification, in 1986 however the BBFC rated its first video game as a 15, video games are however video games are voluntarily submitted for classification, in 1997 the first game to refuse being rated by the BBFC was ‘’Carmagedon’’ however a later version of the game was rated and it received a 18 certificate, and in June 2007 the game Manhunt 2 was refused a rating and so deemed illegal to sell.


The video recording act of 2010
This act brought back into force some parts of the video recording act of 1984, this was because the European commission had not been notified in 1984 of this act which directly affected the classification and distribution of films in the U.K and therefore due to the lack of information provided to the European commission this act was deemed unenforceable and therefore on the 15th December of 2009 this act to revive the provisions of the video recording act of 1984 was presented to the house of commons, subsequently the second and third reading of this act both took place on the 6th January 2010 and so on the 21st January of that year the act received royal assent and is still in force today.

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