Yesterday a new Image Rights Grab competition was launched by the UK Department for Innovation, Business and Skills. Reading the small print in the terms and conditions for photo submissions to their Living Science Competition on the 'Science, so What?' website, we find that:
By entering, all entrants licence News International, the Department for Innovation, Business and Skills, and their authorised representatives, a worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free licence to publish and use each entry (including all images and text submitted by the entrant as part of the entry process) in any and all media (including, without limitation, print and online) in perpetuity.
This means that News International (The Times, The Sun, The Sunday Times, The News Of The World), the Department for Innovation, Business and Skills, and 'their authorised representatives' (ie anyone else they choose), can use your images for anything, for all time, without any payment to the photographer.
Following the huge success of our campaign to persuade Great British Life and Archant Publishing to change the terms and conditions of their website and competitions, we now ask our loyal supporters to help us in publicising this new underhand Rights Grab on photographers' images.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
If you have your own website, blog, newsgroup, whatever, please copy and paste this link into your site:
What will happen is that anyone searching for info about the Living Science Competition is likely to see a link to this blog and be warned about the Image Rights Grab attempt.
Does this have any effect? Our previous campaign rose as high as the number 3 search result on Google for the search term 'Great British Life' and as a direct result Great British Life and Archant Publishing liaised with Fair Trade Photographer in rewriting their terms and conditions to make them fair to photographers.
Friday, February 26, 2010
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Good call! Now added to my site.
ReplyDeletethanks Tom - this blog is already number 3 on Google for "living science competition" and the number 2 result has a warning about the terms too, so hopefully the Department for Innovation, Business and Skills will take notice and change the terms and conditions.
ReplyDeleteHi everyone
ReplyDeleteThanks to all of you who raised these concerns with us, we've updated the T&Cs to better reflect how the images will be used. You can read the full text on the SSW website, but I've copied the important bit below.
Best
Frank
"19. By entering this contest you agree that any (winning or shortlisted) entr...y you submit may be used by the Promoter, News Group Newspapers Ltd and their selected sub licensees solely for marketing and promotional purposes in connection with this contest or future contests, such uses include;
• judging the competition;
• displaying the entries on the Science: [So what? So everything] website and The Sun’s website;
• displaying the entries in the printed version(s) of The Sun newspaper;
• cropping and re-sizing the image as necessary to fit; and
• inclusion within any materials promoting the competition or any exhibition of images from this competition organized by the Promoter, News Group Newspapers Ltd and their authorised representatives
20. By entering, you grant to the Promoter, News Group Newspapers Ltd and their authorised representatives a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to publish and use your image only in the ways described in clause 19 (above). Such licence will commence on the date your entry is received by the Promoter and will expire five years after the date of the announcement of the winners.
21. If the Promoter or News Groups Newspapers Ltd or their authorized representatives wish to use your image in any way which is not described in clause 19 above, they will only do so after they have contacted you and obtained your express permission for such additional use (for the avoidance of doubt, you do not have to grant such permission)."
I have just twittered
ReplyDeleteBEWARE! Living Science Competition IMAGE RIGHTS GRAB! http://bit.ly/ajZeDq