Pro-Imaging

Independent on Sunday/Insight Guide photography competition ends 12 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. Firstly hese rules appear here on the Terms and Conditions page -

"Use of materials: a) All entries, however submitted, shall become the property of INM and will not be returned. By entering this competition entrants agree that should they win or be a runner-up they are deemed to have agreed to grant to INM a non-exclusive licence to publish the winning entries online and in print.

b) For the avoidance of doubt, entrants agree that the publisher, and INM as the copyright owner, shall have the right, but not the obligation, to exhibit and reproduce, and authorise others to reproduce, the winning entries for all publicity and promotional purposes connected to the competition, including exhibitions and calendars.

c) The publisher and INM shall try to ensure that all material used is credited with the entrant's name."

The following statement also appears -

"INM's competition rules apply, see independent.co.uk/legal"

Note that the phrase "independent.co.uk/legal" is not hotlinked. You may wish to consider why this is so when you see what it refers to. Had it been hotlinked it would lead to this page. Further terms and conditions are listed on this page as follows -

"6. INM shall have the following rights over all winning entries:- the exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide licence to first publication; and a non-exclusive licence to publish, syndicate, distribute, reproduce and exploit the material in all present and future media and formats and to sub-license these rights to others. Entries, however submitted, will not be returned by INM."

It is interesting to note that on the main competition page they are primarily claiming rights to use the submitted images to promote the competition, but on the other page to which they have not supplied a hot link, they are claiming rights to do as they wish with the images, including sub-licensing these rights to others. This is litle different from a full copyright claim and one can understand why these particular rules are not on prominent display, nor even conveniently linked to.

Such practices by competition organisers to split the competition rules over multiple pages, without convenient links, and with the most extensive rights being claimed on pages other than in the main rules page, pages that the organiser fully understands most entrants will never get to see, is condemned by Pro-Imaging without reservation.

For that reason alone such contests cannot be recommended. 

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
• 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

• 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 -

INM claim rights allowing them to use the images without limit of time for any purpose they wish and do so with terms and conditions split up on different pages in a way that makes it likely all the rights they claim will not be seen by the entrants. Organisations should ensure that terms and conditions are all in one location, easy to read, and clearly state what rights they are claiming.

This contest is not recommended. 

Organisations - Independent on Sunday, Independent News and Media Limited, APA Publications,

Judges - A panel of judges led by Peter Noble, a former trustee of The Royal Photographic Society.

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.