Hallmark Pet Photo Competition

Yet another photographic competition with extremely unnecessarily harsh and unfair terms and conditions.


Why you should not enter Hallmarks Pet Photo Competition.

Simply by entering you give the rights to your image to Hallmark. Yep another one ! At first I thought, yes this is possibly ok, they appear to be just asking for unlimited, in perpetuity licence from finalists and winners. But then term #20 is the usual crap image grab term.

To those who produced this poor competition at HALLMARK, the general public would surely support an honest and fair competition, not one that has this term ! And because of this term I would definitely not support this competition – be aware!


I’ll be contacting Hallmark today.


Here’s the offending terms:



20. When an entrant submits any materials via the Promotion including comments, recordings and images (“Content”), the entrant, unless the Promoter advises otherwise, licenses and grants the Promoter, its affiliates and sub-licensees a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide, irrevocable, and sub-licensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish and display such Content for any purpose in any media, without compensation, restriction on use, attribution or liability. The Promoter reserves the right to crop, adjust or modify the Content (including text and images) in any manner. Entrants agree not to assert any moral rights in relation to such use and warrant that they have the full authority to grant these rights.

Entrants agree that they are fully responsible for the Content they submit. The Promoter shall not be liable in any way for such Content to the full extent permitted by law. The Promoter may remove any Content without notice for any reason whatsoever. Entrants warrant and agree that: (a) they will not submit any Content that is unlawful or fraudulent, or that the Promoter may deem in breach of any third party intellectual property, privacy, publicity or other rights, defamatory, obscene, derogatory, pornographic, sexually inappropriate, violent, abusive, harassing, threatening, objectionable with respect to race, religion, origin or gender, not suitable for children aged under 15, or otherwise unsuitable for publication; (b) they will obtain prior consent from any person or property that appears in their Content; (c) they will obtain full prior consent from any person who has jointly created or has any rights in the Content, to the uses and terms herein; (d) their Content shall not contain viruses or cause injury or harm to any person or entity; and (e) they will comply with all applicable laws and regulations, including without limitation, those governing copyright, content, defamation, privacy, publicity and the access or use of others’ computer or communication systems.

Without limiting any other terms herein, the entrant indemnifies the Promoter for any breach of the above terms.

21. Entrants agree that if their entry is selected as a winner, that they will not use, or allow someone else to use, the Content for publically available commercial purposes, including, but not limited to, greeting cards, or advertisements.

22. All entries (which shall include photographs) submitted become the property of the Promoter. Entries will not be returned to any entrant. As a condition of entering into this promotion, each entrant agrees to assign all of their rights, title and interest (including copyright) in and to their entry to the Promoter. Each entrant warrants to the Promoter that each entry submitted is an original artistic work of the entrant that does not infringe the rights of any third party. The entrant agrees to indemnify the Promoter against all costs and claims by third parties arising from a breach of this warranty. Entrants consent to any use of their entry which may otherwise infringe their moral rights pursuant to the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth).



William Long – Photographic Competitions Watchdog