| The Bill of Rights for Photography Competitions |
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Introduction If you are unfamiliar with the meaning of terms such as rights, copyright, intellectual property, and moral rights you will find it helpful to read the Introduction to Rights and Licensing before reading the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights for Photography Contests campaign was devised towards the end of 2007 and launched in March 2008. It is a response to those photography contests which have the intention of claiming perpetual and irrevocable usage rights of the submitted entries, even in some cases copyrights and waiving of moral rights. The World Intellectual Property Organization defines the purpose of copyright and related rights as follows- The purpose of copyright and related rights is twofold: to encourage a dynamic creative culture, while returning value to creators so that they can lead a dignified economic existence, and to provide widespread, affordable access to content for the public. Rights grabbing seeks to take advantage of a dynamic creative culture without returning value to creators and therefore the practice of rights grabbing is unethical. Not all contests do this, but those that do are in effect exploiting entrants, seeking to remove legal rights from them, rights that are automatically granted by the law of all countries to their citizens in order that creative people can make a living from their creativity. Creativity is a very valuable commodity and the majority of the business world and publicly funded bodies have an endless need for it. Unfortunately some prefer to obtain it for nothing through devices such as photo competitions with 'rights grabbing' terms and conditions; this is an unethical practice that is indefensible. We believe that the spirit of the law should be respected for everyone. Therefore in 2007 we set out to devise a set of standards that photography contest organisers could use to draft contest rules that would respect the creator’s rights. These standards would allow the organiser to use the images to promote the contest, the photographs, and the photographer, and certain usages to defray costs or create profit, all time limited so that when the time period expired the creator had full and exclusive rights to their images returned to them. We call this set of standards The Bill of Rights for Photography Competitions. During their development discussion took place with other photographic associations and photographic competition organisers. This extensive liaison took place to ensure the creation of a set of workable and practical standards that at the same time prevented exploitation of the entrants by respecting both their rights and their creativity. Later in this section you will find a complete listing of the Bill of Rights for Photography Competitions. How the Bill of Rights Campaign WorksWe receive notifications from photographers and Bill of Rights Supporters around the world identifying organisations that run photography competitions. Sometimes competition organisers contact us direct for advice or information. When we are notified of a contest with rules that comply with or exceed the standards set out in the Bill of Rights we promote the contest on the Rights On List. Unfortunately many contests are brought to our attention with rules that do not comply with all the standards set out in the Bill of Rights. In these cases an entry is made in the Rights Off List for the organisation that is promoting this contest. If you click on the organisations name in the Rights Off List you will see all the contests they promote that we have been notified of. They are all contests with rules failing to comply with the standards set out in the Bill of Rights. We also contact organisations and invite them to become Bill of Rights Supporters. We explain that the benefits of being a Bill of Rights supporter are –
There is no fee to be paid in order to be a member of the Bill of Rights Supporters group. In return a Bill of Rights Supporter agrees only to organise or sponsor photographic contests that meet all the standards set out in the Bill of Rights for Photography Competitions and that the rules of their contests are clear and unambiguous with regard to meeting these standards. We hope that the invitation we send will enable a dialogue to take place culminating in the organisation concerned agreeing to become a Bill of Rights Supporter. Any discussions we have with the organisation concerned are in the strictest confidence and will never be revealed. If after 2-3 weeks we have had no reply to the invitation a subsequent invitation will be issued. Ultimately, if an organisation either declines the invitation, or ignores it, we will report in the Rights Off entry for that organisation whether the invitation was ultimately declined, or just ignored. However, we never report the content of any discussions we have had with an organisation. The door is always held open and we hope that perhaps in future the organisation may review its decision and decide that being a Bill of Rights Supporter is a good thing, good to promote its organisation, good to promote its photography competitions, good for the creative community, and good to be part of a process that aims to raise respect for the rights of creative people. If they do they will be welcomed to the group and their organisation and future photography contests promoted.
Appeals for Images by Commercial OrganisationsThere are businesses which appeal for images to be submitted to them in order that they may exploit the images in some way, say by publishing a book. There are no prizes involved nor any negotiated remuneration on offer to those who supply the images. Instead, the organisers will claim that their use of the image will provide the person granting them use of it free publicity which will help them get 'noticed'. In some cases those responding to the appeal for images are actually asked to pay a fee to have their image included in a book. Such a practice is viewed as exploitation of those who submit images in response to the appeal, and although not a contest the practice is still subject the Bill of Rights. It is viewed as a contest with no prizes and will simply be judged according to the Bill of Rights standards. |
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