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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chris_Nightwing" data-source="post: 6125231" data-attributes="member: 882">I really don't want to be a pain in the ass, but I *hope* that the following complaints can be viewed constructively. Standard disclaimer, I'm not a lawyer, but consumer and copyright law is very easy to read up on these days.I sincerely question the legality of this contest. You have failed to even consider the most basic provisions in your description of the contest, even in the legal section, and your language is rather too casual to hold up to inspection. At the very worst for an entrant to the contest, your description implies that they may not win the vote, may not win $1000 and yet you will hold the rights to their RPG and will be free to publish and profit from them. At the very worst for you, said entrant sees your success and decides to sue you on the basis of your poorly worded contest. As a reference, I suggest looking at the full rules of the contest WotC is currently holding to design a character sheet, or the rules for this contest to design a logo for the Hugo awards: <a href="http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-awards-logo-contest-official-rules/" target="_blank">http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-awards-logo-contest-official-rules/</a>The BasicsYou need to state clearly and succinctly who is eligible for this contest. Is there an age requirement? Is there a place of residence requirement? Is there a requirement to register on this website, or are there other avenues for submission (be very careful here, as contests in the UK must provide a no-purchase-necessary free method of entry, and I think registering for a website is ok provided there is a guarantee that they will not receive marketing information, even so, recent Coca-Cola contests that require registration on their website *still* provide a mailing address you can apply to). Clearly you are only willing to award the prize by PayPal, so you must state that a PayPal account is required and that there is no alternative prize. I have no idea about an age requirement - put I think PayPal has one, which would carry over to your contest. Can anyone around the world enter? Probably not - so many competitions are limited to the US/Canada because otherwise you have to comply with every legal system around the world, and I highly doubt you will be able to do this - do you know what the IP law is in China for instance? Will your provisions about transfer or rights hold there? Oh, and can moderators enter? Can employees or people who have freelanced for you enter? Can you enter?You don't clearly state the eligible submission dates and times for the contest. The use of 'my time' and 'I'm in the UK' is not sufficient, as it implies but does not confirm that you mean BST (you could be in the Falkland Islands for all we know).Your submission guidelines are rough. You ask for the submission of an RPG - what constitutes an RPG? If someone submits what might be considered a boardgame, but with characters, such as Mansions of Madness, would that be an RPG? If someone submits a game where the only rule is that conflicts are resolved by real fist-fights, is that an RPG? You can state that "you'll know it when you see it", but that might lead to arguments. Do you have the right to withdraw your entry? What about if I accidentally submit the wrong file? When can I withdraw, if I can? What else will disqualify me from the contest other than multi-voting?The rules on who win say that there will be a vote. Who will vote? ENWorld members? Can people who register on the site during the voting period vote? Can I sign my friends up to the site so that they can vote? What happens if there is a tie?Now for the rights assignment. Both of the contest rules I mention above include the signing over of copyright on the piece of work submitted. Is is the same as signing over the IP rights to that piece of work? If you publish the entry, how much are you allowed to change? Can you claim authorship if you make sufficient changes? If the author wants to write a supplement, who has the rights to publish that? This is *very muddy water* and I would be careful here, because even if claiming copyright on all the submissions is legal, you could stir up a lot of resentment if you later use that without acknowledgement. Your contest is a little different from the standard 'logo design' contests that exist in their hundreds on the web, and different from the Hugo and WotC contests above, because they definitely will publish the winner, and it's clear that they can't 'profit' from any but one or two entries. If you take a look at something more similar, such as writing competitions (<a href="http://www.willesdenherald.com/competition/rules.php" target="_blank">http://www.willesdenherald.com/competition/rules.php</a> for instance), they clearly state that copyright will remain with the author other than for a limited set of circumstances (ie: to publish the winner in their book or newspaper).I got completely lost myself writing all of that, but hopefully you can understand my concerns? One final worry - ENWorld was recently saved from the brink of collapse by the efforts of the community here, and sure, the Kickstarter offered fantastic rewards, but it was still a call for help that was answered, rather than a business transaction. The way in which you describe the contest.. well, it sounds a lot more mercenary. You want to give someone $1000, but only so you can publish enough of them to make a profit - even publishing those who don't win with no rewards for the authors. To me, this sounds like exploitation. Whether someone has an RPG lying around or writes one this week, they will still put effort and hopefully some amount of love into their works and to then lose their rights to that work (even if it is hopeless) whilst someone else makes money off of it sounds awful - the very sort of thing we would be up in arms about on these boards if WotC or Paizo tried it. Contests run by those companies ask for far, far less and they clearly state who will be eventually published as a result of the competition. Please don't exploit this community - I'd rather there be no monetary prize, but the possibility of good pieces of work being published with a fair share of the profit or pay for the work than an ill-conceived contest that might leave a lot of people disgruntled.</blockquote>

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