Pro-Imaging

Cardiff University 125 Years Photo Competition ends 30 September 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. Copyright, Licence and Your Work

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, 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

• 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
• 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

The main reason for failing this contest is the reason that most contest terms and conditions fail the Bill of Rights, that is they claim the right to use the images for ever.

In addition they also claim the right to use the photographs in any way that they want, nor will they credit your image in printed publications. We think it is unnaceptable to claim free usage and then to say images will not be credited when published.

Although you will still be able to license your image non-exclusively, you will lose forever the valuable right to license your image exclusively.

Pro-Imaging are of the opinion that organisations funded by public money should be setting the highest possible standards with regard to competition terms that respect photographers rights as set out in The Bill of Rights. It is very disappointing that Cardif University's terms and conditions for this photography contest fail to meet those standards.

This contest is not recommended. 

Organisations - Cardiff University, 

Judges - The judge will be selected by Cardiff University’s Strategic Development Directorate. No details of the judge are given.

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

© 2008 Pro-Imaging; Last updated 10 June 2008

The above text may be reproduced providing the Pro-Imaging copyright notice is displayed.

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.