The why behind the words…

We’ve had a couple of people taking a look through the terms and conditions of the competition and point out that it feels like a bit of a scam. What we are looking to do here is to answer any of these concerns, and walk through the terms and conditions of the competition as our lawyers have written them, and translate the heart / intent behind them, and why they are there.

Lets start at the beginning – its a very good place to start.

1. The terms are between people who upload photos, and Christian Resource Centre International (CRC or CR) – the promoters – and by participating you are ticking a box to say you agree to them. Pretty standard so far.
2. So here is one of the scary terms that probably hasn’t been explained very well in this document, but when accompanied by the promotional material starts to make a bit more sense, so we will dive into this one with the full ‘Why?’.
   – Christian Resources is set up to resource churches and non-profits, generally by providing media or media support services. Our passion is to help amplify what others are doing in the media space. We have identified that it is very hard for churches to locate imagery and media that has a New Zealand context, online. By offering this competition, we are hoping to start the process of building up a toolkit of images from artists who are keen to provide them. We want to make these free for charities to be able to use.
   – What we are not wanting to do is prevent artists from being able to make any further financial gain from the images. Far from it. Throughout the history of CR we have been an equipment hire source for many organisations, so we know that gear ain’t cheap. If an artist isn’t able to recover costs, they are being exploited, and that is the last thing we want. One of our plans is to build a stock imagery marketplace for commercial businesses / agencies to be able to purchase quality imagery for use, and most of that sale would go to the artist themselves – we would need to take a commission to pay for the mechanics of having a portal for the artists to sell their imagery, but we are not wanting to stand in the way of artists being able to profit from their art – in fact we want to encourage it to a wider audience. We want to work with artists to promote their work, with the side benefit charities gaining a pool of resources they can use as well. The plan for the stock site is that you would be able to choose whether any imagery uploaded is allowed to be used by charities or not, or if it is just for sale on the site. We don’t mind either way. With the photography competition, the plan is that any uploaded imagery will end up in that new system, and will be credited to the person who uploaded it, and a login will be sent to you to manage your own images. If you decide you don’t want to market any of them or let any charities use them – no problems – yours to decide. Unfortunately we need to allow for the imagery to be able to be used by the charities as part of our terms and conditions, so that when you upload media, you are aware that that will be our default stance. If you decide that your images shouldn’t be used by charities, no problems, we can remove them at any time – just drop us an email.
   – We would actively discourage any use of media that is dispersed for charities to use without recompense, to then be used for commercial use – we would be policing that and ensure awareness of the rules when the media is downloaded. Charities would have a user role on the site that unlocks the ability to download without paying any media the artists allow. Otherwise they can use the site like any commercial venture and pay for images. If a charity wants to pay for an image, we will give them that option as well.
3. Kinda follows on from the descriptions on point 2. In order for us (CR) to use the images, we need your permission to let us do so. By uploading an image, you allow that. We will ensure as best we can that it is used for charities, unless, once we have the photography portal fully developed, you have said you are ok to sell the images commercially. When the portal is fully developed, ideally you will be able to set the pricing on any images being sold, and transparency over commissions etc.
4. Covers the mechanics of entering.Also please make sure you provide us your real details, so that when we get the portals set up allowing you to manage your own images, we can contact you to enable that.
5. Don’t send us animated gifs, or thumbnails etc. They would not be able to be used by charities or sold commercially, so not really worth supporting in the competition. We also won’t digitise your imagery.
   Ideally they are just the image, in whatever form you upload it, but without any added borders, watermarks or signatures.
6. If you have people or property in your images, you have their permission to use them. My mum would not like if I entered a picture of her brushing her teeth into the competition… We want to respect that. If I did it anyway, CR isn’t liable – she would throw things at me, not CR… And yes, once CR are notified, we can remove any offending material.
7. We want NZ content. We live in the NZ context. There are plenty of other stock sites out there offering a global sense of what it is to do life – New Zealand is under-represented. We are keen to fix that. So – NZ entries, and ideally be old enough to make your own decisions around entering, or have consent from someone who is old enough to support you to know what you are doing.
8. So this one has been a bit controversial. IT comes in 2 parts – so lets attack this bit by bit.
   – Win stuff. We have some prizes, here is what they are.
   – If we only get one entry, and its a meme image, then we reserve the right to not give out a prize. Our lawyers told us to put this in so that we aren’t at risk of it all turning to custard and us needing to award submissions we can’t use. As we are now a few weeks into the competition, and we know we have lots of really high quality entries, this second part where it talks about potential of not awarding prizes can be scratched. We categorically are rewarding the advertised prizes, and this condition now feels like a bit of a lemon and we are wondering how it even got into the list… but we prob can’t change the terms and conditions now that we have entries – that would not be fair on anyone. So whilst we reserve the right, CR can state it won’t be exercised.
9. CR won’t be judging this. We get experts for that, so it is impartial. We will do our best to contact the winner(s) as soon as possible. If we are not able to, we may need to re-assign winnings to the next contactable contender.
10. All images you provide are yours. CR is just an agent.
    -You give CR permission to use them, and pop them in our portal, ideally for others to use. As per above, once the tools have been developed, you will be able to control their use though.
    -You give permission for charities enabled by CR to use the images non-commercially too.
    -CR doesn’t need to check with you each time it allows a new charity to view and request use of your image.
    -Use of images does not prevent modification of imagery by the end user.What we wanted to achieve with this is a means to enable competition participants to see how the images could be used by charities, but they won’t rock up to their local shopping mall and see their images used to sell jeans. Our intention is for all photographers to be able to see any ‘transactions’ in the system, for example what charities have downloaded which images of yours and when. Also any commercial sales if you permit that. Our aim is to be transparent around this.
11. If an image is used, we don’t really want the end user to have to attribute the images creator every time it is used – that gets hard to do well, and is unprofessional looking for any media created from the content. So, by uploading to the competition, you are ok if the images are used without your name on it, and may be modified to fit their needs for final presentation.
    If you withdraw your entry, we’d still like to be able to use the media. If you won’t allow that, no worries, just tell us. We will merrily comply. They are your images.
    Once the images are no longer in CR’s custody (ie have been downloaded by a user) then CR is no longer responsible for how they are used or modified.
    Basically for any of the images to be useful for end users, they need freedom to be able to use the images as they need. By uploading content, you are ok with this. If objections are raised we certainly aren’t saying we can’t help those objections being passed on from the artist to the end user, but CR won’t be held responsible for the end users actions.
12. Any images uploaded are yours to upload, and CR won’t be held responsible if they aren’t. If a problem is found, you will work with us to try to resolve it. Non-compliance can get your competition entry disqualified.
13. If you misrepresent any provided content as your own, if you upload objectionable content etc, we reserve the right to disqualify your entry. Basically, keep it clean.
14. We would ideally be keen to contact you once the photographer portals are live so you can manage your content yourself. You may get other marketing material about things we are doing in the world. Like any newsletter, you are welcome to opt out whenever you wish, or express what content you do and don’t want from us. And your details are yours, so you can update them at any time as well – just let us know.
15. We don’t want anything bad to happen – don’t forsee it, but we’d hate to be sued because you wanted to get that perfect shot for your competition entry and managed to fall into a pond and damaged your camera.
16. Probably best to use an example here. If you upload something that isn’t yours, and then a charity goes and uses it… if the actual original artist wants recompense, that’s getting passed on directly to you. “You make a mess, you clean it up” kind of deal. Putting this in the terms and conditions should help prevent this sort of dishonesty.
17. 18. 19. :: By participating you’ve read the rules, you are complying with them, and know the consequences. Overall, NZ law trumps anything we say, and will be used to dictate any disputes. And that the current version of these terms is the one to use.

Hopefully that dispells any concerns you may have. We are completely open to dialog around them, and get that the written terms can be a bit daunting when taken without the context of what we are looking to achieve and how. But the intent of the competition and the terms etc, which fits with what CR as an organisation is aiming to do as a wider organisation, is to gain artists exposure, build a platform that enables them to market their goods in the future, and provides tools for charities to further their causes.

Got questions or concerns? Please chuck us a message on the contact form and we’d be happy to dialog or jump into a call to chat these through.