Pro-Imaging

Canon New Baby Photo Contest ends 31 May 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.

"5. For all Photos: All Photos will become the exclusive property of Sponsor, and none will be acknowledged or returned. Sponsor shall have the right, but not the obligation, to edit, adapt and publish any or all of the Photos, and may use them in any media whatsoever, including, but not limited to the Internet, without attribution or compensation to the entrant, the Baby, either of their successors or assigns, or any other entity. ENTERING A PHOTO IN THIS CONTEST CONSTITUTES ENTRANT’S IRREVOCABLE ASSIGNMENT, CONVEYANCE AND TRANSFERENCE TO SPONSOR OF ANY AND ALL RIGHT, TITLE AND INTEREST IN THE PHOTO INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ALL COPYRIGHTS."

"7. Requirements for Winners: Potential winners will be notified by mail, email or phone on or about August 7, 2008. Each potential Grand and First Prize winner (parent/legal guardian if potential winner is a minor in his/her state of residence) will be required to execute and return to Administrator, within ten (10) days of the date notice or attempted notice is sent, an Affidavit of Eligibility, Liability & Publicity Release (“Affidavit”) in order to claim his/her prize. If a potential winner cannot be contacted, or fails to execute and return the Affidavit within the required time period (if applicable), he/she forfeits the prize."

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 

• Fail, All photographers entering the contest retain their copyright
• Unclear, The contest does not require any entrants to waive moral rights
• Fail, A credit is always given to the photographer when the image is published
  
• Fail, 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

• 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

• Fail, The organisations that acquire rights are all named
• Fail, 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, you can never license it again, the copyright will belong to Canon who will have the sole right to license it's use for ever. Given that the picture is of an entrants baby, the entrant may have concerns about that - 

This contest is not recommended. 

Organisations - Canon U.S.A, ePrize, LLC

Judges - unnamed 'experts' selected by Canon.

Contact - Send enquiries and views about this contest to here.

© 2008 Pro-Imaging; Last updated 11 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.