Create positive PR for your organisation and its brands
A very popular and effective method of promoting a brand, business, charity, or public sector organisation is to create a competition that offers prizes. Popular competitions often seek submissions of creative content such as photos, music, video, poetry, stories, paintings, sculpture, etc., the best of which will be awarded a range of prizes.
However, competitions involving the submission of creative content can have the opposite effect to that intended and create negative PR for your organisation. This will happen if the competition (and/or its sponsors) requires entrants to grant to the organiser intellectual property rights for their submissions which are in excess of those generally accepted as fair.
To avoid that outcome the Artists’ Bill of Rights campaign has created a set of principles which, when applied to the rules for such competitions, will ensure that the competition is seen as fair by potential entrants.
Organisations applying these principles to their competitions have the right to display the Artists’ Bill of Rights logo. This ‘green light’ is recognised by creative people around the world.
It proclaims that the organisation displaying the logo is a supporter of the Artists’ Bill of Rights and that they only organise or sponsor contests that comply with the Bill of Rights principles. It creates a positive image for your company’s brands and it will encourage more entrants to make submissions to your contests.
In addition, organisations which support the Artists’ Bill of Rights are promoted on the campaign website, as are each of their competitions, and the promotion is free.
Principles for creative competitions & appeals rules that create positive PR
1. Usage of submissions is non-exclusive, entrants will retain copyright.
2. Submissions can be used to promote the competition, but no other purpose.
3. Winning/shortlisted submissions may be used to promote recurrences of a competition in perpetuity.
4. Non-winning/non shortlisted submissions may be used to promote the competition for up to five years following the date on which the winners were announced.
5. That in addition to reproduction of the submissions via the media and exhibitions, promoting the
competition can include the reproduction of submissions in a competition book or calendar, but not
both, plus competition posters and competition postcards.
6. All submissions will be credited when used.
7. Entrants are not required to waive their moral rights in respect of their submissions.
8. Metadata will be preserved in digital submissions.
9. For any usage of a submission in addition to the above permitted usages a license will be negotiated with the creator independently of the competition.
10. There are exceptions for charities which enable people to donate rights in addition to the above (but not copyright) to causes they support. See charity page for details.
