21 June

2013 IPAF ATOM Awards

Arts Law maintains an ongoing watch advocating fair and transparent contractual terms for competitions and prizes and is highly critical of terms which unnecessarily deprive artists of rights in their own work.  Arts Law often contacts competition organisers urging them to amend their terms and conditions to be fairer to entrants, especially where copyright and moral rights are affected.

The 2013 IPAF ATOM Awards recieved 2 / 5 stars.  This means entrants retain copyright, but the competition requests an overly wide licence to use the works for a greater amount of purposes than we think is entirely fair.  The licences are also either not limited in duration or request the entrant agree to an infringement of their moral rights (e.g. can modify, adapt or distort the works).  Best practice would be to reduce the scope of the licences to uses concerning the competition only, limit the duration of the licence and ensure the protection of artists' moral rights. The deadline for this competition closes on the 28 June 2013.

See Arts Law's competition star rating system for further information.