The Competition
Nikon Small World Competition
Closing date for entries; 30 April 2010
This prestigious annual contest promoted by Nikon Instruments has been running since 1977 and is a celebration of both the technical excellence and artistic expression involved in creating scientific imagery. Images must have been taken through a microscope using any of the techniques of light microscopy.
Nikon Instruments made clear that any commercial opportunities that may arise with regard to the winning entries will be passed to the submitting photographer and negotiated without Nikon's involvement.
Winning images only in this contest will be retained by Nikon Instruments solely for the purposes of promoting this contest and will be exhibited in various exhibitions in North America.
The majority of the entrants to this competition are not photographers but rather scientists who are capturing images for the purposes of their research. In this community, non-commercial open access image sharing (with proper credit) is considered a normal practice and an important part of scientific collaboration.
There is a top prize of $3,000.00 and the competition is open to entrants over the age of 18. For further details and to enter the contest click here.
Complies with the Bill of Rights
This competition meets all the standards set out in
the Bill of Rights For Artists
Competitions which comply with the conditions set out in the Bill of Rights For Artists do not -
- claim copyright
- seek waiving of moral rights
- fail to give a credit for all free usage
- add, alter, or remove metadata from digital images
- seek usage rights other than for solely and exclusively promoting the contest. Note that a book, posters, cards, or a calendar are seen as legitimate ways of promoting the contest and defraying costs
- seek free usage rights in excess of 3 years
- use the images commercially without the photographers agreement, and such commercial usage is to be rights managed and limited to 3 years.
- make it a condition of winning that an entrant must sign a commercial usage agreement
- fail to publish all documents on the competition website that an entrant may have to sign
- fail to name the judges for this or last year's competition
- fail to explicitly state all the organisations who will acquire rights to the images
- set a closing date more than 18 months after the contest launch date
- fail to make clear statements of rights claimed and how images are used
© Bill of Rights Supporters Group
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The above text may be reproduced providing a link is given to the Bill of Rights For Artists.
Any text reproduced above in italics has been extracted from a competition website for the purposes of review.
Organisations who would like to be promoted as a Bill of Rights Supporter and have their competitions promoted on the Rights On List can use this contact form. One of the campaign team will get in touch with you.

