Pro-Imaging

Environmental Photographer of the Year   ends 31 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.

"We may use your entries for promotional purposes to help publicise the Environmental Photographer of the Year competition. All usage will be fully credited to the photographer.

We will be compiling an exhibition programme of the winning and commended entries. Any photographers who have taken images that we wish to be included in the exhibition will be notified. We will also seek separate permission to sell the images as limited edition prints for the sole purpose of donating all proceeds to the charity Water Aid."

These reasons are listed on the competition website regarding why you should enter this contest -

• "Receive recognition as the international Environmental Photographer of the Year
• Have your winning work published in CIWEM’s international monthly magazine WEM and receive coverage in international publications
• Have your winning work take part in a roving exhibition throughout the year 
• Have your winning work showcased on CIWEM’s popular website"

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
• Pass, 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
  
• Pass, free usage only promotes the contest or is used for a book 

3 Commercial Usage Rights Claimed

• Unclear, 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
• 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 -

• It fails to specify a time limit for free usage of the photos
• It is unclear if commercial usage is made of the photos
• The organisations that get rights to use the photos are not all listed

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. 

The contest rules are few and insufficiently clear to allow a definative view of this contest to be given and if this contest is of interest to you write to the organisers and get answers to the following questions -

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Organisations - CIWEM, Water Aid, Black & Veatch

Judges -

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 on 10  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.