| Photo Competitions Diary 18 August 2008 |
Photo Competitions Diary 18 August 2008Listed below are the titles of the competitions added to the competition campaign lists since the previous diary update along with news of any other events that have occured in the campaign since the last diary was published. 7 August 2008
14 August 2008 18 August 2008
2 August 2008
News PDN Silence on Waiving Of Moral RightsOne of our contributors notified us of a contest administered by Photo District News (PDN), a New York based media outlet for news related to the professional photographic industry. PDN is part of Nielsen Business Media, which in turn is part of the Nielsen Company. The contest, entitled Pix Digital Imaging Contest 14, concerned our contributor because the terms linked to from the contest website required entrants to waive their moral rights for submissions made. We looked at the contest website, and to our surprise discovered two sets of terms and conditions, one of which was requiring moral rights to be waived. We brought our concerns to the attention of PDN but they falied to respond. The full story can be read here.
Scott Kelby; Photo's Walk Into a Years Free Commercial UsageScott Kelby, the editor and publisher of Photoshop User Magazine and president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) has launched a contest entitled 'Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk'. Scott Kelby states the purpose of this contest is to celebrate the launch of his updated Lightroom 2 book. We had notices from contributors concerned about the other purpose of this contest, that is, to supply Scott with a years free commercial usage for the images submitted to the contest that can be used in "all media now or hereafter known for illustration, art, promotion, advertising, trade, or any other purpose whatsoever." Astonishingly, Scott, a photographer himself, requires entrants to "relinquish any right that you may have to examine or approve the completed product or products or the advertising copy or printed matter that may be used in conjunction therewith or the use to which it may be applied." and this prevents the entrant from exercising their moral rights. Surprised that Scott would demand other photographers give up rights that we are sure he himself would not wish to relinquish we prepared our competition report and wrote to Scott with details of our concerns. We received several notifications from photographers about this contest and the full story can be read here. UK Local Goverment Council, Weymouth & Portland Need ImagesSubmitted to us by a contributor, this contest illustrates that rights grabbing is not only practiced by commercial entitities, government organisations are happy to use public funds to launch rights grabbing contests on an unsuspecting public, a public they are supposed to be serving. In this case Weymouth and Portland, a United Kingdom local council with a budget of £46M in 2007, has launched an image harvesting contest the rules of which permit the council and Condor Ferries to have "unrestricted use of the photos" for ever. We wonder if Weymouth and Portland will make similar appeals for free road building, free building maintenance, free fuel for council vehicles, or free electricity for council offices for example. We think it unlikely because they know they would not be granted such largesse by the suppliers of these products. However Weymouth and Portland know they can get from a naive and unsuspecting public free imagery, imagery that by rights they should be paying for. We wrote to the Mayor of Weymouth and Portland, councillor Tim Munro, submitting a copy of our report on the competition. We note that he claims to be committed to eradicating discrimination. It's a pity that this committment has not extended to the rights of photographers and photography businesses in the Weymouth & Portland area. The full story can be read here. San Francisco Based Planet Stars in Rights GrabA San Francisco based magazine, Planet, which claims on it's website that it "is always looking for talented and motivated people in the States and abroad to contribute to our unique magazine project." is now also looking for contributions of free imagery. They wish to use the images "for promotional purposes (except where prohibited), without review, notification, or approval." and to gather in the images they have launched a contest entitled Planet Global Travel Photo Contest. We noted that yet again, we have been notified of a contest which will not permit entrants to approve how their images are used, a denial of their moral rights. This contest was notified to us by a Danish contributor to our campaign, and having seen the rules we wrote to Planet Magazine. The full report can be read here.
The Italian JobThis is the first Italian contest to be placed on the Rights Off List, notified to us by an Italian contributor who helped us out with translation of parts of the contest website, thank you! Our first Italian Rights Off competition is a noteworthy addition to that list because it is particularily greedy when it comes to rights claimed from the unsuspecting entrants. The contest is organised by an Italian Tour Operator, Associazione Centro Turistico Studentesco Giovanile, or just CTS, and the contest is entitled il Veliero dei Delfini, Chi l'avvisto. Not satisfied with just claiming usage rights forever, this organisation is claiming "the exclusive right to unlimited use and to modify the photos without the permision of, or payment to, the authors." I think it would be fair to say that this rights grab can be described as outrageous, in effect it leaves the entrant with a valueless image that cannot be licensed to anyone. We wrote to CTS and the full report can be read here .
Philadelphia; First Person Arts’ Impressions CompetitionThis contest was added to our Rights Off List on the 7th of August, but following discussions with the organisers they assure us the rules will be changed to comply with the Bill of Rights for next year. They did want to change the rules this year but they were given legal advice not to do so after the contest had started, but to make the changes effective for next year. First Person Arts assured us that they do not and have not exercised the rights claimed by the rules. Pro-Imaging welcome these statements but unfortunately we can only judge contests by the published rules. We look forward to being in a position to promote this contest next year on the Rights On List.
Great Picture & Small Print - Don't Lose Rights In CompetitionsOwn-it and Pro-Imaging have invited four experts in their field, a solicitor, an award-winning photographer and two competition organisers, who will give you an overview of the legal framework, and how to avoid pitfalls when entering competitions. A representative of Pro-Imaging will discuss their campaign against rights grabs in the small print of competitions and the clauses of their ‘Bill of Rights’, a checklist designed to differentiate fair from unfair competitions. Date: Tuesday 9th September 2008 Time: 6-9pm Presentations 6-8pm followed by drinks/networking until 9pm. Location: The October Gallery For further details and to book your place at this event click here.
Support the Bill of Rights for Photography Competitions I Would you like to help in this campaign? If you would like to help here is a very easy way to do it through your website, blog, or forums that you belong to. Please provide links to the following three pages on the Pro-Imaging website - Bill of Rights http://www.pro-imaging.org/content/view/177/156/ Rights On List http://www.pro-imaging.org/content/category/21/69/171/ Rights Off List http://www.pro-imaging.org/content/category/20/68/173/ These links are very important, the more of you that can do this the higher our campaign pages will appear in search engine rankings when people are looking for competitions to enter.
Support the Bill of Rights for Photography Competitions II Here's another simple way to help. Once a week, choose a competition on the Rights Off List, preferably one that's still running, any one that catches your eye, and send an email to the contacts listed in the competition report. Where we have given judges contact details write to them too. Tell them what you think about the contest rules, or just keep it simple and tell them you've found their competition on the Pro-Imaging Rights Off List and ask them to change the rules to comply with the Bill of Rights. We know that thousands of visitors have viewed our reports, and if each of you just send one email every week it will help our campaign enormously.
RSS Feed We take the opportunity at this point each week to mention that if you want to keep up to date with the competition campaign, click on the orange RSS Feed icon in your browser address bar. You will recieve competition diary updates direct to your RSS feed. Regular visitors know this already, but new visitors arrive all the time!
Contacting Us We welcome notices telling us about contests that are either good or bad. You can use our Competitions Campaign Contact Form to tell us what you've found. We are especially keen to hear about good contests that you think pass our Bill of Rights, at the moment they are more difficult to find but as the campaign continues for the long term, we expect that to get easier. We try and reply to all the notices we receive, but this may not always be possible. We thank you here in advance for any help you offer. We never reveal the names of those who notify us of competitions.
Previous Diaries Other competition diary entries can be read here.
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