Lord Mandelson's Vanishing
Rights Grab
Thursday 4 March 2010
On the 2 March 2010 the link to the terms and conditions was fixed and original terms and conditions re-appeared. On Wenesday 3 March 2010 the terms and conditions were changed.
They have been improved but one of the problems remaining is that there is no mention that the images will be credited when used to promote the contest. In the meantime we have suspended the Rights Off report for this contest, we assume the remaining problems are accidental rather than intentional. We hope they can be corrected and if so an update will be published here.
17:30 Saturday 27 February 2010
On Friday 26 February we reported the Rights Grab perpetrated by Lord Mandelson's department. A photography competition entitled Science: [So what? So everything] that claimed for Mandelson's Department "a worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free licence to publish and use each entry" and likewise for Rupert Murdoch's News International Corporation.
The home page for the competition had a link to the terms and conditions and this link appeared just under the entry form. Clicking on that link took you to the detailed terms and conditions page for the contest, or rather, it did on Friday the 26 February, but not on Saturday 27 February. Now if you click on that terms and conditions link you are taken to - nowhere different!! You remain on the competition home page, but one with a different URL.
Does this mean that Lord Mandelson does not approve of Rights Grabbing? If he has how will he explain to Rupert that he has changed his mind? Will Lord Mandelson make a statement to say that the "terms and conditions were badly worded", or will he say what should be said, that he apologises and he will issue a directive that no public funded organisation is to Rights Grab. We must wait and see what happens now. In the meantime entrants are entering images to a contest that has no published terms and conditions, an interesting legal situation.
If you would still like to look at the original terms and conditions page you can see it here, but you will not find any links to it from the competition web site. We will post news here with any new developments.
Thursday 4 March 2010
On the 2 March 2010 the link to the terms and conditions was fixed and original terms and conditions re-appeared. On Wenesday 3 March 2010 the terms and conditions were changed.
They have been improved and the only problem remaining is that their is no mention that the images will be credited when used to promote the contest. In the meantime we have suspended the Rights Off report for this contest, we assume the ommission is accidental rather than intentional. We hope this can be corrected and if so an update will be published here.