The Valleys Heart and Soul of Wales is a brand which has been adopted by the Valleys Partnership.  The competition linked to The Valleys Heart and Soul of Wales website where, on the about us page, it said the Valleys Partnership consisted of over 30 organisations.

It did not name who these organisations were, nor did the competition rules page. Subsequently Pro-Imaging complained to the Welsh Minister concerned that over thirty unamed organisations were being granted rights to use the images. We also submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to obtain the names of all the organisations that comprised the Valleys Partnership, and details of their funding arrangements.

Freedom of Information Request

The FOI request was submitted to the WAG Deputy Minister for Housing and Regeneration, Jocelyn Davies, the competition is part of her portfolio. Our request was neither acknowledged nor was the information supplied.  Following expiry of the statutory period for dealing with FOI requests Pro-Imaging raised a formal complaint with the Information Commissioner.

This immediately resulted in our request being responded to by the WAG's Department of the First Minister and Cabinet. They said that the WAG handling of our request fell below the standards the public rightly expect to be employed.  The information was released shortly afterwards and sent to us by the Valleys Regional Park Manager.

Information Received

In his very helpful letter the Valleys Regional Park Manager named all the organisations that comprise the Valleys Partnership.

However, he also explained that the Valleys Partnership is not the same as the Valleys Heart and Soul of Wales Campaign, the latter being a separate initiative to positively promote the valleys in a consistant way through a wide range of events, activities and projects which have been encouraged to adopt the brand. He confirmed that the Valleys Partnership has adopted the Heart and Soul Brand.

Given that the T&C's of the competition grant rights to "The Valleys Heart and Soul of Wales (and its Partners)" it was necessary to confirm that the list of organisations comprising the Valleys Partnership are indeed the same organisations that will be granted rights to use the images.  Pro-Imaging phoned the Valleys Regional Park manager who confirmed that they were.

Funding

However the information supplied only gave funding details for one of the organisations, the Welsh Assembly Government. Apparently WAG does not hold funding details of the other 36 organisations, they would have to be the subject of 36 further FOI requests.

To avoid another period of delay waiting on 36 public bodies responding to FOI requests Pro-Imaging decided to carry out on-line searches concerning their funding. We searched for annual income or expenditure figures from each organisation's most recently published accounts. In a few cases we were unable to find published accounts and excluding those, the total annual expenditure for the organisations listed below is £4,971m.

One may ask why organisations with access to around five billion pounds need to prey on the public for "free to use" IP rights.

Thirty Seven Rights Grabbing Organisations

The 37 organisations with rights to use the winning and shortlisted images are;

Public Sector Bodies

Welsh Assembly Government (£16.7m)

Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council (£130.2m)

Bridgend County Borough Council (£232m)

Caerphilly County Borough Council (£307m)

Cardiff County Council (£894.8m)

Carmarthenshire County Council £535m)

Monmouthshire County Council (£125m)

Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council

Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council £406.9m)

Newport City Council (£383m)

Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council (£418m)

County & City of Swansea

Torfaen County Borough Council (250m)

Brecon Beacons National Park Authority (£6.4m)

Countryside Council of Wales

Environment Agency Wales (£93.9m)

Forestry Commission Wales (FCW) (£32m)

National Museums and Galleries of Wales (£28.6m)

Sport Wales (28.9m)

South East Wales Transport Alliance (SEWTA) (£757,165)

South West Wales Integrated Transport Consortium (SWWITCH)

Private Sector Bodies

Dwr Cymru/Welsh Water (£688m)

Gwent Wildlife Trust (£769,927)

Wildlife Trusts of South & West Wales (£1.8m)

RSPB (£111m)

Groundwork Wales (£9.4m)

Groundwork Trusts (Merthyr RCT, Caerphilly and Bridgend/Neath Port Talbot)

British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV) (£20.7m)

Keep Wales Tidy (£2.9)

Sustrans (£26m)

Dulais Valley Development Trust

Federation of City Gardens and Community Farms (Charity) (£857,000)

Wales Co-operative Centre

Sustain Wales/Cynnai Cymru

Capital Regional Tourism (£861,591)

South West Wales Regional Tourism Partnership

British Waterways (£220m)

A New Low

Of all the competitions we've looked at in the last few years, and they are far more than we have resources to deal with, we think this is the most predatory rights grab we have come across. We can think of no other competition which grabbed rights for more than a handful of organisations. WAG have set a new low standard that we hope is not going to be emulated by them again, or by anyone else.

Rights grabbing practices by public authorities give rise to serious concerns about the ethical standards they use to guide their policies.  The purpose of copyright law is being undermined by rights grabbing. Copyright law is the bedrock on which the economy of those who have to earn a living from their creativity depends.

What Now?

Having got to this stage with this competition we now wish to follow what happens to all the photographs harvested by this rights grab.

This means we will be preparing further Freedom of Information requests, some of which will be targetted at obtaining details of the arrangements in place for the sharing of photographs amongst the organisations concerned. Other requests will concern how the original terms and conditions of this contest are being applied to any future use made of the images.

We view this rights grab as an opportunity to find out what happens to 'grabbed' images in the years following the competition - and we trust the Freedom of Information act will help us in that endeavour.