Pro-Imaging

National Geographic Your Shot Ongoing 

The Rules of this Contest

This is published on the National Geographic website as a straighforward appeal for pictures. Pro-Imaging treat such appeals as competitions in which the prize is getting your image published and freely used for ever without payment.

Listed below are extracts from the rules of this competition. These extracts detail the rights being claimed from entrants.

"You grant to National Geographic Society and its subsidiaries and licensees ("NGS") the following rights: a royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual license to display, distribute, reproduce and create derivatives of the Photograph, in whole or in part, without further review or participation from you, in any medium now existing or subsequently developed, in editorial, commercial, promotional and trade uses in connection with NGS Products. An NGS Product is defined as "a product of NGS, a corporate subsidiary, affiliate, joint venturer or licensee of NGS, in any language, which is associated with an NGS trademark and over which NGS has Editorial Control." For the purposes of this Agreement, "Editorial Control" means the right to review, consult regarding, formulate standards for, or to exercise a veto over the appearance, text, use, or promotion of the product. This license includes the nonexclusive right to make the Photograph available to third parties (i) for library or other research uses through microfiche, microfilm, or any other archival storage and retrieval form, including but not limited to electronic databases and document delivery services; and (ii) for distribution in connection with an NGS press conference or press release."

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, Rules state 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
• 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

• Pass, A statement clarifying the commercial usage position is present as per The Bill of Rights
• 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 -

If you submit 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. However, the "National Geographic Society and its subsidiaries and licensees" have gained the right to use all submitted images for ever in any medium they choose.

This contest is not recommended. 

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Organisations - National Geographic, Nikon

Judges - Judge details are not 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 , This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , and This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it (Nikon)

© 2008 Pro-Imaging; Last updated on 24 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.