NikonLive Cool Shot Contest; closing date 1 Sep 2010
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Although the title of this competition is the NikonLive Cool Shot Contest the terms and conditions only grant rights to use the entrant images to Live Nation, not to Nikon, and the prizes are Live Nation products.
Nikon Inc. (also known as Nikon USA) is apparently only involved in the judging process and by hosting the Live Nation competition on their own NikonLive website. It is assumed that the purpose of this arrangement is to bring music fans to the NikonLive website to promote awareness of the Nikon brand.
For a number of years now Nikon Inc. has been pursuing a strategy to increase awareness of its brand amongst the huge worldwide community of music fans. Live Nation, the largest live entertainment company in the world, makes an ideal partner to fulfill that strategy. Listed below are some Nikon Inc. initiatives demonstrating how the strategy is being implemented.
On April 18 2006 Nikon Inc. issued a press release announcing Nikon's sponsorship of Live Nation's Jones Beach Theatre, one of over 40 venues owned or operated by Live Nation. As part of the sponsorship deal the theatre is now promoted as Nikon at Jones Beach Theatre.
Following Nikon Inc.'s announcement in 2007 of their new President, Yasuyuki Okamoto, they sponsored RECRD LBL to connect fans and musicians through digital photography. In the same press release they said they had launched NikonLive, a dynamic website alleged to enhance the live music experience.
NikonLive was subsequently revamped in 2008 by Sposto Interactive then, according to a Nikon press release dated June 24 2010, was relaunched yet again as part of its sponsorship of the Nikon at Jones Beach Theatre with Live Nation.
An arrangement with Live Nation provides Nikon's professional photographers with exclusive photo access at Live Nation events.
Now Nikon Inc.'s partnership with Live Nation continues through the hosting of a Live Nation competition on the NikonLive website. The terms and conditions of this competition are reviewed below.
SPONSOR and ADMINISTRATOR: The Sponsor of the Contest is GEAR UP ("Sponsor"). The administrator of the Contest is Live Nation Marketing, Inc. ("Administrator"). Sponsor and Administrator are collectively referred to herein as "Contest Entities." Administrator will conduct the Contest substantially as described in these Official Rules. By participating in the Contest each entrant agrees as follows:
Acknowledges and agrees that, if an entrant's Submission wins, entrant will execute an affidavit of eligibility and liability release, in which winner will irrevocably assign and transfer to the Contest Entities any and all rights, title and interest in the Submission, including, without limitation, all copyrights, and waive all moral rights in that Submission.
PUBLICITY, PRIVACY & PRIZE NOTIFICATION: Except where prohibited by law or regulation, by submitting an entry, entrant grants the Administrator a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free license to use his/her name, character, photograph, voice, and likeness in connection with the promotion of this and other Contest, and entrants waive any and all claims and/or rights to receive any royalties or other compensation for the Administrator's use thereof, unless prohibited by law.
Winners may be required to complete, sign, notarize and return an affidavit of eligibility/liability release and a publicity release, which must be returned, properly executed, within three (3) days of issuance of prize notification.
HOW THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS WILL AFFECT YOU
The following notes explain how the above terms and conditions affect your rights in respect of any works you submit to the above competition or appeal.
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If you are a winner the terms and conditions are claiming your copyright. You will no longer be the owner of your work, legal ownership will be transferred to the organisation. You will not be permitted to use or reproduce your work again without permission from the new owner.
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If you are a winner the terms and conditions require you to waive your moral rights. This means you will not be able to object to how your work is used in future, such as it being altered in a manner you may find derogatory, or if it is used to promote a product or cause you find objectionable. You have also lost your right to be credited as the author of your work.
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The terms and conditions do not state you will always be credited when your work is reproduced. One of your most important moral rights is that you should be credited as the author of a work whenever it is reproduced.
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The terms and conditions state that if you win, or are a potential winner, you are required to complete various additional forms, but the terms and conditions of these additional forms are not displayed on the competition or appeal website. This is like being asked to sign a blank cheque. It is not an acceptable business practice to require you to accept all the terms and conditions when submitting a work but fail to display all the terms and conditions that will ultimately apply.
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The terms and conditions are granting the organiser unlimited use of your work for ever. For non-winning works a usage time limit of 5 years or less should be set with usage limited solely to promoting the competition or appeal. It is permissable to use winning works for ever but only in a permanent winners gallery with the sole purpose of promoting a recurring competition or appeal.
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The terms and conditions grant the organiser the right to use your work beyond that needed to promote the competition or appeal. Your work will be used for other purposes. Usage of your work should be restricted solely to promoting the competition or appeal. If the organisation wishes to use your work for any other purpose they should negotiate with you independently of the competition. You should have the right to negotiate an appropriate fee for the specific use they want to make of your work and to set a time limit on such use. You should also have the right to refuse use of your work. For further information on fees and licensing refer to the Introduction to Rights and Licensing.
The above may help you to decide not to submit any works to this competition or appeal. For further guidance please read the Bill of Rights for Artists.
SPONSORS
#Nikon is not actually listed as a sponsor in the competition T&C's but as they are hosting this contest on their Nikon Live website, Pro-Imaging, for the purposes of this report, deem them to be one.
Although acquiring no rights, it is surprising that Nikon should be willing to host a competition with rights grabbing terms and conditions. Especially so in view of the fact that Nikon have published an article in the UK Nikon Pro magazine entitled -
"The Big Issue: Whose Copyright is it Anyway
How Corporations Try to Force Photographers to sign their Rights Away
and What You Can Do About It"
CONTACT
To complain to the organiser write to Live Nation at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. 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 mark it for the attention of their CEO Michael Rapino.
To visit the competition website click the competition title above to submit the free image we have created. Note that the competition link may cease to work at some point after the competition results are announced.
You can help the Bill of Rights campaign by complaining to the organiser urging them to change their terms and conditions. If time is at a premium for you we have prepared a complaint email which you can copy and send to the organiser. Alternatively, or as well as, you can submit the free image we have prepared to register your complaint simply by entering the free image to the contest.
Where a contest automatically displays entrants images on the contest website as they arrive you can use the free image to test the competition and determine if it is stripping metadata. The test results can be submitted to a survey by the Controlled Vocabulary Group.
The Bill of Rights campaign depends on your active support, your help will make a difference.
Updated on 9 August 2010
Competitions or appeals seeking submissions of creative works from the public, works such as photos, videos, poems, music, etc., are reviewed by the Bill of Rights campaign. The reviews are to help you decide whether you should participate in the competition or appeal. The only thing you need to understand is that when you create a work (e.g. a photo) the law automatically makes you the sole beneficiary of certain rights over that work (but see note 1 below). These rights are called intellectual property rights.
