These rules are divided into 3 parts:
For each month of the Festival, two winners will be announced as follows:
At the end of each month of the Festival, a panel of judges will select their favorite entry for that month. For the first month of the festival, the judging panel will be composed of the following individuals (subject to modification): Arianna Huffington, The Yes Men, Nora Ephron, Jeremy Zimmer, and Kristin Gore. The Jury Winner entry wins $2,500.
Also at the end of each month of the Festival, the entry with the most unique visitors for that month will win the People’s Choice Award. The People’s Choice Winner wins $2,500.
The project must be created specifically for the Contagious Media Festival. You are not permitted to submit a pre-existing project or a project that already exists elsewhere on the web. Your project may incorporate preexisting materials, provided you modify or transform them enough to create a new, original work. There is no fee, by the way, to enter the Festival.
The Huffington Post will provide 15MB of space for each contestant. Your entire project must reside on this server and use the resources provided by the server. Your entry will be viewable at a subdomain of HuffingtonPost Contagious Festival site, e.g. ProjectName.cf.HuffingtonPost.com.
Following each month of judging, The Huffington Post (as further described in these General Rules) may elect to archive your entry for subsequent publication by it and terminate your on-going access to the Festival server.
As noted above, at the end of each month the entry with the most unique visitors for that month will win the People’s Choice Award. That means projects submitted later in the month will need to catch up if they want to win. The “Jury’s Choice” award is also awarded at the end of the month but is selected purely at the discretion of the Jurors (judging criteria listed below).
See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/festivalterms.html for more details. Also, pay attention to Part 3, as you must refrain from submitting pornography, illegal content, and the like.
You are free to use your entry on your own personal site or elsewhere offline however you please, and the content you submit is your sole responsibility. Otherwise, The Huffington Post (as further described in these General Rules) will be the exclusive on-line publishers of your entry through November 30, 2006 (regardless of whether you win or lose the contest), without any additional compensation to you. During the exclusivity period you will not permit or authorize your entry to be published elsewhere on-line (other than your own personal site). Following the exclusivity period, Huffington Post may continue during the ensuing twelve (12) months to publish your entry in their respective discretion, just no longer on an exclusive basis.
This license means Huffington Post can use your entry (on an exclusive basis for the designated exclusivity period, as described in item no. 5 above) online for the purpose of the contest, for archives and subsequent publication, promotions, and other related uses, without any additional compensation to you. The Huffington Post will not transfer this exclusive (for the period designated in item no. 5 above), royalty free license to other parties.
You can submit more than one entry per person, per calendar month. If you work in a group, you can list your collaborators when you sign up so everyone can get credit.
You are permitted to lawfully promote your entry however you see fit, with the following exceptions: You may not use paid advertisements, automated processes that fake traffic, scams that produce traffic without people actually seeing your content, or sending SPAM. Huffington Post reserves the right to disallow such other forms of promotion as Huffington Post may, in its discretion, determine to be inappropriate.
That means you should make something appealing and promotable to increase the chances that external links may help your entry by directing more traffic to you. Of course, employees of The Huffington Post and their immediate families are not eligible for any prizes in the Contagious Festival.
The Festival server will automatically insert a banner at the top of your entry that will look like an ordinary banner advertisement and a small footer that will indicate that your entry is part of the Contagious Festival.
The Contagious Festival server does not allow direct links to files. That means you need to embed video, audio, flash, and images in a web page that includes the contest headers and footers. Our FAQ page includes code you can use to embed files in your pages. You also may not include any paid third party advertising in your entry.
You will have full FTP access to your entry throughout the contest. Feel free to tweak, improve, or modify you entry throughout the contest.
The Huffington Post technical staff reserves the right to immediately remove and disqualify any entry that does not meet the contest rules or interferes with the integrity or spirit of the contest.
The Huffington Post will provide free hosting during the month of each contest period. Selected entries at the discretion of the Huffington Post will have free hosting extended.
At the end of each contest period, entries that have not had their hosting extended will be archived or deleted at the discretion of the Huffington Post. Archived projects that stay at their original locations will be locked so they cannot be edited.
1) THE FESTIVAL IS OPEN TO LEGAL RESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES, AT LEAST 18 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER AT TIME OF ENTRY. COLLECTIVE TEAMS ARE ALSO PERMITTED TO PARTICIPATE PROVIDED THAT THE INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF SUCH TEAM MEET THE ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS DESCRIBED IN THESE OFFICIAL RULES. PLEASE NOTE: IF SUBMITTING AN ENTRY ON BEHALF OF A TEAM, ONE DESIGNATED MEMBER OF SUCH TEAM MUST LOG ON TO THE COMPETITION ENTRY PAGE ON HUFFINGTONPOST.COM AND ELECTRONICALLY ACCEPT THESE OFFICIAL RULES AND THE TERMS OF HUFFINGTON POST’S PRIVACY POLICY AND TERMS OF USE. Employees (and their immediate families) of HuffingtonPost.com are not eligible to participate in this Festival. By participating in this Festival, entrants agree to be bound by the General Rules described above and these Terms and Conditions and by the decisions of the Sponsor (defined below), which are final in all matters relating to this Festival.
2) Promotion Period: “The Huffington Post Contagious Festival” (the “Festival”) commences at noon. (EST) on November 1, 2006 and ends at noon (EST) on November 30, 2006 (the “Festival Period”). This Festival is administered and sponsored by TheHuffingtonPost.com LLC (“Sponsor”). Sponsor reserves the right to terminate the Festival at any time in its sole discretion.
3) To Enter: Go to cf.huffingtonpost.com for details. Follow the instructions to complete and submit the online Festival material (the “Entry”). No responsibility is assumed for incorrect or inaccurate entry information whether caused by any of the equipment or programming associated with or utilized in this Festival or by any human error which may occur in the processing of entries into this Festival. Sponsor is not responsible for lost, late, delayed, mutilated, illegible or misdirected entries or any problems or technical malfunctions of any telephone network or lines, computer on-line systems, servers or providers, computer equipment, software, failure of email or players on account of technical problems or traffic congestion or the Internet or at any Web site or combination thereof, including injury or damage to participants or to any other person’s computer related to or resulting from participating or downloading materials in this Festival. Sponsor reserves the right to cancel, terminate, modify, delay or suspend the Festival due to any reason, including reasons of a technical, creative or other nature. Entries that have been tampered with or altered are void. By participating in this Festival, entrants acknowledge compliance with the General Rules described above and these Terms and Conditions.
4) Submission Requirements: Projects must be new, web-based material. Projects may include, without limitation, webisodes, mobisodes, animations, websites, and games. Projects must be original to entrants and not have been released commercially in order to be eligible for prize selection.
5) Entries which contain materials that are not the original work of the entrant will not be accepted. Entries must not contain obscene or pornographic material, contain defamatory or libelous statements, invade privacy rights, exploit the images of individuals under the age of eighteen (18) or in any other way violate applicable laws and regulations. Furthermore, Entries which contain explicit, graphic or excessive sexual activity are not allowed. When sexual themes are key to the concept or plot of an entry they must be depicted with consistent regard for commonly accepted standards of taste and propriety. Language will be evaluated by Sponsor based on context and societal acceptability. Entries containing any inappropriate (as described above) content or which are otherwise deemed by Sponsor in its sole discretion to be inappropriate based on the foregoing criteria, will be disqualified.
6) “People’s Choice” Determination: On the last day of each month of the contest, one (1) “People’s Choice” winner will be determined based on accumulated unique visitors to the entry during that period. People’s Choice winner may be individuals or teams responsible for the submission of a single Entry.
Judging Panel/Judging Criteria for The Jury Winner: Initial judging will be managed by representatives from Sponsor who will judge all Eligible Entries received for originality (50%), creativity (25%), and social commentary (25%) to determine which Entries shall be evaluated by a Judging Panel consisting of Arianna Huffington, The Yes Men (Andy Bichlbaum and Michael Bonanno), Nora Ephron, Jeremy Zimmer, and Kristin Gore as of November 1, 2006 (collectively the “Judges”). Sponsor retains the right at any time, to modify the number of or participating panelists with or without notice. The final determination of all winners (based on the judging criteria described below) shall be in the sole and absolute discretion of the Judges. To the extent permitted by law, Sponsor disclaims any liability from, and entrants (whether or not awarded a prize) agree to waive, any claims against Sponsors/Judges relating to the judging or awarding process. Judges will be asked to make their selections based on the Entries’ originality (50%), creativity (25%) and social commentary (25%).
7) Sponsor reserves the right to delay the announcement of winners in its sole discretion. All winners will be notified by email or telephone. Sponsor will make up to three attempts to contact the Project’s primary contact (as indicated on the winning Entry) for each winning entry. If the primary contact for any winning entry is unreachable during the 72 hours in which he or she is contacted, Sponsor will make up to three additional attempts over a 48 hour period, to contact (i) the primary contact if that winning entry was submitted by an individual (as opposed to a team) or (ii) if a team submission, the remaining members of a team. If after such period, the individual or remaining team members are unreachable, an alternate Jury Winner may be selected from all remaining Eligible Entries. In addition, Sponsor reserves the right to select an alternate Jury Winner in the event that any member of a team fails to comply with the any of the General Rules described above or these Terms and Conditions.
8) Prizes to be awarded (monthly): For each month of the contest, two (2) winners will be selected as follows: The Jury Winner and People’s Choice Winner. Each Prize Recipient (or in the event of a collective group winner, 1 person selected by the group) will receive a grant of $2,500.
9) Entrants, as a condition of eligibility and participation in the Festival (in the absence of which an entrant would not be permitted to participate in or enter the Festival): (i) release the Sponsor and its respective corporate parents, subsidiaries, members, officers, managers, employees, affiliated entities, consultants, volunteers, and advertising agencies, from any and all liability, claims, demands, and causes of action for personal injury and/or damage, theft, loss, or any other harm or damages suffered in connection with this Festival; (ii) except where prohibited by law, grant the Sponsor the right to use his or her name and likeness and Entry for advertising and publicity purposes without additional compensation; (iii) confirm their exclusivity obligations described above in item no. 5 of the General Rules; and (iv) by virtue of their entry in the Festival, accept and agree to the General Rules described above and these Terms and Conditions and the other conditions of participation in this Festival. Entry into this Festival constitutes all Entrants’ agreement to sign such further releases, waivers and other instruments as the Sponsor may from time to time request or as may be otherwise necessary or desirable to more effectively implement the foregoing agreements and releases. In furtherance of the foregoing, Prize Recipients must also complete any additional documentation provided by Sponsor and return such documentation to Sponsor within seven (7) days after receipt of such documents. Noncompliance by any participant may result in such participant’s disqualification. Sponsor reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any individual it finds to: (a) be tampering with the entry process or the administration of the Festival or (b) be acting in violation of the General Rules described above or these Terms and Conditions. ANY VIOLATION OF THESE OFFICIAL RULES BY ANY ENTRANT (AT SPONSORS’ SOLE DISCRETION) WILL RESULT IN SUCH ENTRANT’S DISQUALIFICATION AS PARTICIPANT OR WINNER OF “THE HUFFINGTON POST CONTAGIOUS FESTIVAL” AND ALL RELATED PRIVILEGES OF ENTRANT WILL BE IMMEDIATELY TERMINATED. All entrants into this Festival are solely responsible for consulting with qualified professionals and investigating, understanding and complying with any and all federal, state and local laws, codes, regulations and ordinances which may apply to entrants and the activities and/or business in which such entrants may engage. There may be tax consequences associated with the prizes awarded and with any income received by a prize Recipient, which may include, without limitation, an obligation to report as income and to pay taxes on such funds/income to federal, state and/or local authorities. It is up to the prize recipients to determine the tax consequences of such funds/income, and to comply with all applicable laws in all respects, if applicable.
10) Entrants hereby agree to submit their Entries under the following terms and conditions: (i) entrants have obtained all rights, permissions and licenses necessary to use the materials submitted in connection with an Entry for any purpose; (ii) that no Entry, or any part thereof, infringes any trademark or copyright or otherwise violates anyone’s right of privacy or publicity; (ii) by submitting an Entry, entrants consent to Sponsor exhibiting all materials contained therein, as contemplated under the General Rules set forth above (including the exclusivity obligations described in such rules) and these Terms and Conditions; (iii) Entrants indemnify and hold harmless Sponsor and their respective corporate parents, subsidiaries and affiliates, from any claims, suits, losses damages and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) that arise from any breach or violation of the foregoing conditions. All entrants agree to the foregoing and in addition agree to obtain, upon request of Sponsor, any documentation and releases necessary to prove their unrestricted ownership in all materials contained in their Entries and Sponsor’s right to exhibit, broadcast, copy, reproduce, encode, compress, encrypt, incorporate data into, edit, broadcast, rebroadcast, transmit, record, publicly perform, create derivative works of, and distribute and synchronize in timed relation to visual elements the foregoing materials without limitation for any purpose, without compensation to entrants. For the avoidance of doubt, Entrants confirm that they have granted to Sponsor the right to exhibit, broadcast, copy, reproduce, encode, compress, encrypt, incorporate data into, edit, broadcast, rebroadcast, transmit, record, publicly perform, create derivative works of, and distribute and synchronize in timed relation to visual elements the entry, all as and to the extent described in the General Rules set forth above (including the exclusivity obligations described in such rules) and these Terms and Conditions. Winners further agree to sign such documentation as is necessary to formalize the foregoing licenses.
11) For the names of the Jury and People’s Choice winners, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to: HuffingtonPost.com 560 Broadway, Suite 308 NY, NY 10012 ATTN: Contagious Festival Judging. Requests must be received by December 15, 2006.
12) This Festival is sponsored by The HuffingtonPost.com Inc, 560 Broadway, Suite 308, New York, NY 10012.
13) The Entrants agree that irreparable damage would occur in the event that any of the provisions of the General Rules set forth above or these Terms and Conditions were not performed in accordance with their specific terms or were otherwise breached. It is accordingly agreed that the Sponsor shall be entitled to an injunction or injunctions to prevent breaches of the General Rules or these Terms and Conditions and to enforce specifically the terms and provisions of the General Rules or these Terms and Conditions in any court of competent jurisdiction. The foregoing right is in addition to, and not in lieu of, any other rights the Sponsor may have in respect of a breach of the General Rules or these Terms and Conditions, whether at law or in equity.
14) Contest governed by the laws of the State of New York. Contest not valid in the state of Arizona and where prohibited or restricted by law. The Official Rules are subject to all applicable federal, state, local and foreign laws and regulations including any requirements/limitations imposed by the Federal Trade Commission or any other governmental agency.