Pro-Imaging

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008 ends 31 March 2008

The Rules of this Contest

Listed below are extracts from the rules of this competition. These extracts detail the rights being claimed from entrants.

"8 Copyright You must be the sole author and owner of the copyright for all images entered. By entering your images into the competition, you grant to the Natural History Museum a non-exclusive licence to reproduce the images for any purpose in connection with the competition including, but not limited to, the following purposes:

Royalties will be paid for commercial uses of images.

For the avoidance of doubt, the Owners will choose images from the winning images for the purposes of promoting and marketing the exhibition (and for use on merchandise). In addition, you grant the Natural History Museum the right to sub-licence images to the press for reproduction in connection with the competition and exhibition."

Results of Testing the Rules

Listed below are the results of the tests we carried out on this competition's rules. The tests are all based on the standards set out in The Bill of Rights. By adopting these standards competition organisers can create competition rules that meet the needs of organisers and are fair and respectful to the rights of entrants. For each test a result is given which can be Pass of Fail. Competitions that pass all these tests go on The Rights On List, those that don't go on The Rights Off List.

If the rules are vague and we cannot determine whether the rules pass a particular test or not the result is shown as Unclear.  Where a test is not necessary the result is shown as N/A.

Click on any result below for more information about that specific test.

1 Copyright & Moral Rights 

• Pass, All photographers entering the contest retain their copyright
• Pass, The contest does not require any entrants to waive moral rights
• Fail, Rules state a credit is always given to the photographer when the image is published
• Pass, All the documents that must be completed by each entrant to participate in or win a contest are shown
  

2 Free Usage Durations Claimed

• Fail, The organisers free usage is time limited as per The Bill of Rights
  
• Fail, The sponsors free usage is time limited as per The Bill of Rights
• N/A, Book usage is time limited as per The Bill of Rights
  
• Fail, free usage only promotes the contest or is used for a book 

3 Commercial Usage Rights Claimed

• Unclear, A statement clarifying the commercial usage position is present as per The Bill of Rights
• Fail, Commercial usage is rights managed & time limited as per The Bill of Rights
• Pass, Entrants are not required to sign commercial usage licenses

4 Declarations

• Pass, The organisations that acquire rights are all named
• Pass, This (or last) years Judges are named along with brief bio details

5 Contest End Date

• Pass, The contest end date is within 16 months of the contest being announced

Conclusions

This contest fails The Bill of Rights because -

If you submit an image to this contest, although you can continue to license your image non-exclusively, you will lose forever the right to exclusively license your image. 

This contest is not recommended. 

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Organisations - The Natural History Museum, Shell, BBC Wildlife Magazine

Pre-selector judges

Phil Hurst – photographer, the Natural History Museum, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Paul Lund – photographer, the Natural History Museum

Tor MacIntosh – picture editor/researcher

Wanda Sowry – picture editor, BBC Wildlife Magazine

Kevin Webb – photographer, the Natural History Museum 

 Judges

Tom Ang – photographer and writer, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Mark Carwardine – (chair) zoologist, writer and photographer

Ross Hoddinott – natural history photographer, contact

Phil Keevill – creative director, Kitcatt Nohr Alexandaer Shaw (KNAS)

Rosamund Kidman Cox – editor and writer

Jouni Klinga – nature photographer

Tom Mangalsen – wildlife photographer, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Cristina Mittermier – exec dir.,International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP)

                        This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Norbert Rosing – wildlife photographer, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

José Ruiz – nature photographer and author, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Sophie Stafford – editor, BBC Wildlife Magazine 

Contact - Send enquiries and views about this contest to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

© 2008 Pro-Imaging; Last updated on 12 June 2008

The above text may be reproduced providing the Pro-Imaging copyright notice is displayed with a link to the Pro-Imaging website.

Text reproduced above in quotes has been extracted from the competition website for the purposes of review in this report.

NB. If the competition rules are changed after updated date shown above it is the competition organisers responsibility to notify Pro-Imaging of changes made.