Pro-Imaging

Eventpix.com; Best of Images 2008 ends 15 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.

"All entrants grant Contest Sponsors the right to reproduce selected work for website display as the image relates to the competition, a book featuring the winners, and for any print, electronic, display, or other promotion or usage for one year following the announcement of the winners (on or about January 8, 2009). Any future related promotions or uses will be negotiated with the photographer. The photographer guarantees usage rights and must be able to produce model releases for all submitted photos if requested. Contest Sponsors will attempt to adhere to the original orientation and artist-submitted cropping of each photographic entry but reserves the right to crop any photograph if necessary."

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

• Pass, The organisers free usage is time limited as per The Bill of Rights
  
• Pass, The sponsors free usage is time limited as per The Bill of Rights
• Pass, 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

• 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 -

• Commercial usage may be 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
• The judges are not listed

The rules of this contest are almost meeting the Bill of Rights conditions, but not quite. It may be that the failure to state images will always be credited when published is an oversight.

Usage of the images are time linited for one year, this is excellent. What is not excellent however is the organisers and sponsors are granted usage for "any print, electronic, display, or other promotion or usage for one year following the announcement of the winners. So instead of free usage being employed solely and exclusively to promote the contest this rule seemingly permits free commercial usage by both the organiser and sponsor.

The contest rules state they are using "internationally recognized photographers as well as representatives of Contest Sponsors", which is good, but the rules fail to state who they are.

It may be that the issues highlighted for this contest are simply down to wording that does not express what the organiser intends. If you wish to participate in this contest use the contact details below to get answers to any concerns you have.

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 Update 2 September

On not receiving a reply from the organiser to our first email to them concerning this contest, we wrote again. We felt that the contest rules may only have needed clarified to make this a Rights On contest. We were anxious to pursue this point rather than lose an opportunity to promote a potentially good contest. There was no reply to our second email.

Organisations - Eventpix.com, PickUpPhotos LLC, ASUKABOOK, Canon, Rangefinder Magazine, Kubota Image Tools, WPPI

Judges - The contest websites states that "The competition judges will consist of internationally recognized photographers as well as representatives of Contest Sponsors"  but doesn't state who they are.

Contact - Send enquiries about this contest to -

    Steve Sheanin, Chairman of the Board of Eventpix - This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

© 2008 Pro-Imaging; Last updated on 24 August 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.