Pro-Imaging

Landscape Photographer of the Year 2008 ends 12 July 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.

"16) By entering the competition, you grant Take a view and its sponsors and supporters a non-exclusive, irrevocable licence to reproduce, enlarge, publish or exhibit, on any media, the images for any purpose connected with the competition. This may include, but is not limited to:

Entrants also agree that the organisers can sub-license images to the media for reproduction in connection with the competition.

In addition, the UK’s national and regional tourist organisations (including, but not limited to: Enjoy England, Visit Wales, VisitScotland, VisitBritain, Britain on view, Jersey Tourism, VisitGuernsey, Northern Ireland Tourist Board) may also reproduce, enlarge, publish or exhibit, on any media, the images for promotional purposes, with sufficient accreditation, from the date of 2008 results notice until 31st December 2009. All photography to be credited ‘Take a view/Photographer name’.

For any use that falls outside this remit, royalties will be discussed & negotiated with the photographer concerned.

Copyright of each image is retained by its respective photographer.

Finalists agree to take part in post-competition publicity.

For the purposes of this clause, ‘Take a view’ and the ‘Landscape Photographer of the Year’ shall be seen as interchangeable terms. For clarity, submitted images may be used to promote the ‘Landscape Photographer of the Year’, in addition to ‘Take a view’."

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
• Unclear, 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
  
• Pass, The sponsors free usage is time limited as per The Bill of Rights
• Fail, 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

• 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 -

We are very disappointed to see that all the United Kingdom's Tourist Agencies get free usage of the images until 31 Decemeber 2009. This is commercial usage and as such they should pay to use such images. It is quite unacceptable that organisations publicly funded should be party to devices that are effectively by passing the licensing rights conferred on photographers by the United Kingdom copyright act.

By submitting 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 - Lightworx Ltd t/a Take a view, EnjoyEngland, Northern Ireland Tourist Board, Visit Wales, Visit Scotland, Jersey Tourism, VisitGuernsey, Visit Britain, Britain on View, Light and Land, National Theatre, Sunday Times Magazine, AA Publishing, Amateur Photographer, Bayeux, Campaign to Protect Rural England, Páramo - outdoor clothing with a difference, Outdoor Photography, Fuji Film, Calumet, Lowepro, Giottos, B+W

Judges - All images will be assessed by a panel of judges, including top landscape photographer, Charlie Waite.

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

© 2008 Pro-Imaging; Last updated June 10th 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.