Pro-Imaging

Today, the 10th March 2008, Pro-Imaging have launched a campaign targeted against all those organisers and sponsors of photographic competitions that are merely rights grabbing devices. 

A press release has been issued to photographic media and organisations throughout the world and we are assured that our story will be carried in at least one major photographic news outlet in the U.K. and in another in the U.S.

We are undertaking to supply to the world a consumer report whereby we test photography competitions against a set of conditions embodied in our Bill of Rights for Photographers. Competitions with T&C's that fail any of our tests result in the sponsor being notified of their failure, and given seven days to adjust their rules. 

If they fail to do so we publish in simple language exactly what entrants will lose if they enter the competition. In this launch we have targeted competitions involving Adobe, Nikon, Photo District News, National Geographic, Panasonic, the UK Government, and others. All of the organisations concerned were given notice exactly one week ago about their failed T&C's, they feature in our press release, and you can read the horrible details of how they failed on our Rights Off List. 

Full details of how we test these competitions can be read in our Bill of Rights for Photographers. Also in the Bill of Rights , which by its nature is about as lengthy as some of the terrible T&C's one comes across, you will find details of the notification letters we send to offending sponsors, and a link to our Bill of Rights Poem .

To date we have had one UK goverment agency agree to use our guidelines in future, and we are having discussions with one of the most prestigious photographic competitions in the world about changing their rules to adhere to our Bill of Rights. There will be more announcements about further developments as they occur.  

We hope our members will find time to support this initiative and will take every opportunity to promote it to their colleagues, other associations and organisations you are members of, to other forums you contribute to, and to your amateur friends as well as fellow pro's. Please help spread the word, we can turn the tide if we all do our bit! 

We would be especially pleased if you could lobby any other photographic organisations you belong to join with Pro-Imaging in this campaign.

Pro-Imaging is donating the Bill of Rights tool freely to all creative organisations in the world to use in the fight against the Rights Grabbing malaise that is blighting our industry. Pro-Imaging is not seeking  plaudits, just unity of purpose, we are all so much more effective when we are united with a common purpose!  Our competitions e-mail address is This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it   You are welcome to use our RSS feed facility to automatically be kept up to date with any aspect of the campaign.