Entrants Responsibilities

Entrants Responsibility not to Infringe the Rights of Others

It is possible for entrants to your contest to submit photos that -

May not be their own

May contain recognisable images of people

May contain images of recognizable property

May contain trademarks

May contains images of commercial products

Promoting your competition by publishing such images without the appropriate permissions could result in legal action being taken against you and having to meet substantial costs.

To avoid the burden of such costs falling on your organisation you should declare in your terms and conditions that entrants are fully responsible for ensuring that the photographs they submit do not infringe the rights of others, and that they will be responsible for meeting the costs of any claims brought against you by third parties in respect of images the entrant has submitted.

Listed below are example terms and conditions setting out your requirements with regard to the rights status of the submitted images, and the permissions that entrants must have for specific types of image –

1 Copyright and Permissions

1.1 By submitting images to this contest you confirm that for each image submitted -

1. You alone are the author of your image and that it is your original work,

2. You are the sole copyright holder,

3. You have not licensed any rights in the image that conflict with the usage rights required by Organization Name,

4. You have the permission of any persons in the image, or if they are under 16, the consent of their parent or guardian, to grant the usage rights required by Organization Name,

5. You have permission from the owners of property shown in the image to grant the usage rights required by Organization Name,

6. That it does not include trademarks, contract rights, or any other intellectual property rights of any other third person or entity,

7. That it does not contain  names, likenesses, or other characteristics identifying celebrities or other public figures, living or dead,

8. That it has not been a winning or shortlisted entry in any other competition,

9. You will be responsible for any claim made by any third party in respect of Your entry and to fully indemnify Organisation Name and its sponsors in respect of all royalties, fees and any other monies owing to any person or entity by reason of Your breaching any of the foregoing.

1.2 Organisation Name reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify any entry that does not comply with any of the above, even after the entry is submitted on the competition website.

 Entrants Responsibility to submit Acceptable Content

You should define in the terms and conditions what you consider to be unacceptable content in the submitted images, for example pornographic material. The sample terms and conditions below set out the usual criteria for defining unacceptable content -

2 Unacceptable Content

2.1 Organisation Name reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify any entry -

1. That contains personally identifiable visual information about You or any other person,

2. That contains threatening, false, misleading, abusive, harassing, libelous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, scandalous, inflammatory, pornographic or profane content,

3. That contains any material that could constitute or encourage conduct which would be considered a criminal offence, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any law.

2.2 You agree to fully indemnify Organisation Name and its sponsors in respect of all costs owing to any person or entity arising by reason of Your breaching any of the foregoing.