Pro-Imaging

Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize ends 25 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.

"Photographers agree that the Gallery may reproduce and or license the reproduction of any entries featured in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition without any payment to the photographer, model or any third party for any sales, marketing, educational and publicity use on, and in, all media worldwide including catalogues, posters, postcards, the Internet and within a television documentary related to the exhibition. However, such free use shall only be in connection with the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize and where practicable the photographer, and if appropriate the agency, will receive credit for such use"

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

This contest fails The Bill of Rights because -

• There is no statement limiting the duration of free usage as per The Bill of Rights
• Commercial usage is made of the photos but there is no time limited rights managed agreement to license and limit such usage
• The rules do not state that the photos will always be credited

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.

On 9th May 2008 we wrote to the NPG and Taylor Wessing detailing the Bill of Rights conditions which their contest failed. We stated that if we did not hear from them by the 16th of May we would assume the contest rules could not be changed and our competition report would be prepared on that basis.

On 12th May we received a  reply from the Exhibitions Manager saying they would need more time to consider the issues raised in our email to them. We proposed the end of May as a date that should give them time to review their contest rules and this was accepted by NPG.

On 29th May we received a note from the Exhibitions Manager indicating no rules would be changed but that "we plan to incorporate some possible revisions into the rules for next year’s competition."

We did not receive any response from Taylor Wessing, the IP specialists who are sponsoring this contest.

We responded to NPG's reply, and we have listed below the content of our letter. We are unable for legal reasons to publish the content of NPG's letter to Pro-Imaging.

=== 

Dear *****, 

Thank you for your reply, and we always welcome statements that the management of intellectual property is taken extremely seriously. Pro-Imaging attaches similar importance to this issue. 

It is the case that contests that conform to the requirements of the Bill of Rights conditions have few and simple terms and conditions. 

To suggest that to comply with the three simple rule changes we proposed would result in terms and conditions that could run to pages and pages implies our letter may have been misunderstood. We asked for;

We could help you reduce your rules by following the guidelines in the Bill of Rights. 

We fully understand your needs relating to the core purposes of the contest. 

The Bill of Rights makes provision for those needs by providing contest organisers two years free non-exclusive and non-commercial usage solely and exclusively relating to promoting the competition. It also allows one free commercial usage, that is the publication of a book or catalogue that promotes both the works submitted, the photographers, and of course the contest. 

These are generous provisions considering the primary purpose of a contest is to celebrate excellence and innovation, an ideal that I am sure you are aware is being crushed nowadays by the sheer number of contests acquiring excessive free rights. 

The Bill of Rights sets out conditions that are both fair and respectful to the rights of creators and the needs of contest organisers. Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it permit a shopping list of rights to be acquired on the basis that you may or may not wish to exploit them. On the contrary it is quite clear and precise about the rights that can be acquired and for how long. We cannot condone the practice of acquiring rights simply on the basis that you may, or may not, find a need for them. 

With regard to costs you charge a fee for each photograph submitted to the contest to cover costs, you have sponsorship funds for the contest, and income from the sale of the contest catalogue. 

If you cannot see in practice any circumstances why you would not credit photographers, we cannot understand why the rules of your contest permit you not to credit the photographer. It is a simple matter to change the rule to say you will always credit photographers; we would strongly urge you to do so. 

We are very disappointed that the National Portrait Gallery is not prepared to review its rules for the current contest, as has been done by other organisers, even in one case after the contest closing date had expired.  Nor has your email indicated a commitment to specifically address the three points we raised in our email for next year's contest. 

The National Portrait Gallery is a premier institution in the cultural life of the United Kingdom and has a very high profile. Your Director, Sandy Nairne, is appointed by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the National Portrait Gallery is in receipt of significant public funds, in excess of seven million pounds in the most recent financial year. 

It is incumbent upon premier national cultural institutions entrusted with public money to aspire to the very highest standards in fully respecting the rights of creators. We are sure you share these aspirations. 

In the meantime, as the current year's rules are to remain unchanged, we will prepare our report on the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait prize on the basis of the existing rules as published on your website. Should you subsequently adjust any of your rules and notify Pro-Imaging that you have done so we will happily review our report. 

If the contest then satisfies all the conditions in the Bill of Rights we will be delighted to promote it on our Rights On List of recommended photography contests. As that list slowly grows Pro-Imaging aim to make it a worldwide reference point for photographers who will enter only those contests on that list. 

Kind regards

Organisations - National Portrait Gallery, Taylor Wessing

Judges -

Sandy Nairne, Director, National Portrait Gallery (Chair), This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Cheryl Newman, Commissioning Photography Editor for Saturday Telegraph Magazine

Sheila Rock, Photographer, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Sue Steward, Writer and broadcaster; photography critic for the Evening Standard

Terence Pepper, Curator of Photographs, National Portrait Gallery, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Contact - Send enquiries and views about this contest to Flora Fricker, Exhibitions Manager (Competitions) at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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