The Bill of Rights - Introduction

Perhaps the best way to start is to explain what the Bill of Rights for Competitions is and why it was created. The Bill of Rights is -

When someone creates a work of art, such as a painting, a photograph, music, a story or poem, etc., the law gives that person (the creator) the exclusive right to control how it may be used, published or performed. This right enables a creator (i.e. you) to require payment from other persons or organisations who wish to use, publish or perform any of your works.

For example, if you have ever taken a photograph the instant you take it you are a creator and you have legal rights over its use no matter whether you are a professional photographer or are just a person who has taken a family snap.  The law grants you that right¹, and does so automatically, there are no forms to fill in to assert your rights.

Rights to use works created by you have an economic value regardless of your profession. There are countless organisations world-wide who want to have the rights to use your photographs or any other works created by you.  Most don't want to pay you for the right to use them.

Rights Abuse

Creative works, such as photographs, are constantly required by organisations to promote their businesses and aims. Like all business commodites the value of these rights is subject to negotiation between you and the organisation that wants the rights to use your works.

However, some organisations don't want to pay you for rights to use your work and take steps to obtain them from you for nothing. How is is this done? Simply by running a competition, or an appeal. Firstly they ask you to send your creative works, such as photographs, to the competition.

Next they will dangle prizes as carrots to encourage lots of submissions from others. The prizes often cost them nothing having been donated by a sponsor who may have been given the right to share in the spoils of the competition. Another carrot often dangled is that your photograph may be published in some magazine or book for example, preying on the natural human desire to see their works being 'promoted'.

The terms and conditions of these competitions or appeals actually form a contract whereby you grant the organisation promoting the competition rights to use your work. Usually the T&C's allow the organisation the right to use your works for ever, to use them in advertising, even to profit from these rights by sub-licensing the rights to use your works to other organisations with no benefit ever being returned to you. It is very unlikely you will even be credited. This practice is often termed "rights grabbing" and its victims are the public.

Exploitation of the Public

Rights grabbing is an unethical practice deployed against a public that in the main has limited understanding of this exploitation of their rights. When organisations exploit the public to get works of art for nothing via competitions this is damaging the ability of creative people to earn a living from their work in fields such as photography, illustration, music, etc.

Who are the organisations that do this?  Here are just a few examples -

In order to combat rights grabbing the Bill of Rights was drafted to set limits on the rights competition organisers can obtain. For example, in a photography competition they need the rights to display winning photographs to announce the winners, the rights to use the submitted photographs to promote the competition (and future competitions) in various media, and the Bill of Rights sets a time limit on all such rights.

In essence the Bill of Rights prohibits the granting of any rights to the organiser other than those needed by the organiser to promote the competition.

The Aims of the Bill of Rights Campaign

The campaign aims are as follows -

How the Campaign Works

Using our competition form the public can send us notices about competitions they have discovered.

Most of the notices we receive are about competitions with terms and conditions that fail to comply with the Bill of Rights. So let's step through the process for one such competition.

Note that steps 2-4 above are subject to resources being available, not all competitions can be fully processed pro-actively in the way that we would wish.

Some competition notices received are about competitions that comply with the Bill of Rights, or are enquiries from a competition organiser. Such notices are given priority.

When writing to competition organisers we always take the opportunity to explain the benefits of becoming a Bill of Rights Supporter.  Bill of Rights Supporters agree not to organise or sponsor competitions unless the terms and conditions comply with the standards set out in the Bill of Rights.

In our reports we encourage the public to write and complain to organisations that run rights grabbing competitions, and to urge the organisation to become a Bill of Rights Supporrter.

Photography & Other Artistic Disciplines

In the beginning the Bill of Rights was drafted by a photographers' association, Pro-Imaging, to address the problem of rights grabbing in photography competitions. Through contact with other associations Pro-Imaging became aware that other disciplines suffer similar abuses of their rights and we feel that the Bill of Rights should be extended to address their concerns.

As a first step towards being inclusive the Bill of Rights Logo proclaims "We Support the Artists' Bill of Rights" so that it can apply to all creative disciplines.  However, because of the origin of the Bill of Rights campaign much of the existing copy refers to photographs but we still use the principles set out in the Bill of Rights to review contests involving other disciplines. It is our wish that all of the Bill of Rights copy be reviewed and changed to more precisely reflect the needs of other disciplines. We welcome representatives of other disciplines to work with us to achieve that end.

Further Information

If you want to know more about rights, how they work and how they provide an income you can read our Guide to Rights and Licensing. 

If you are an organiser of a competition to which creative works such as photographs, paintings, etc., will be submitted and want to refer to a guide to setting terms and conditions for your competition read our Organisers Guide to the Bill of Rights.  Feel free to contact Pro-Imaging for further information.

The Bill of Rights should be referred to for detailed information about what rights competition terms and conditions can and cannot claim.

Recommended competitions are published on the Rights On List.

Competitions to avoid are published on the Competition Notice List and the Rights Off List.

The Bill of Rights menu to the right of this page provides links to all the Bill of Rights Publications.

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Notes

Note 1. If a person creates a work of art in the course of their employment it is normally the case that the rights in that work of art are owned by the employer, not by the employee.