Legal:The Heart of Knowledge Contest 2019 rules

The Heart of Knowledge Contest Rules ("Rules")

This page explains the rules for The Heart of Knowledge Contest ("Contest"). By participating, you agree to be bound by these Rules and the decisions of the judges and Sponsor, which are binding and final on matters relating to the Contest.  

Eligibility: No purchase is necessary to enter the Contest. Individuals who would like to participate in the Contest ("Contestants") must meet the following requirements:

  • Be at least thirteen (13) years of age;
  • Have permission from your parents to enter and submit your information if you are under eighteen (18) years of age and/or under the age of majority;
  • Have access to a device capable of using the Internet;
  • Have access to an online video sharing site (such as YouTube or Vimeo);
  • Understand the English language; and
  • Be legally allowed to participate in contests.

Sponsor: This Contest is sponsored and administered by The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 1 Montgomery Street Suite 1600, San Francisco, CA 94104 ("Wikimedia"). Employees and their immediate family members are ineligible to participate in the Contests. Void where prohibited.

Contest Period: The Contest begins on March 28th at 10 am PDT and ends on April 30th, 2019 at 11:59 pm PDT (the "Contest Period"). All entries must be submitted during the Contest Period.

Submissions: Submissions consist of a creative work (or works) completed by Contestants ("Submissions") that fits into one of the following categories: essay, poetry, short film, visual art, or short fiction. Submissions shall respond to the following prompt: "What does open access to knowledge mean to you?". Only one Submission per category per Contestant (for a total of up to five entries).  

How to Enter: Only one Submission per category per natural person. Online Submissions only. To enter, follow all instructions below.

Go to forms.gle/eqsqGpKPGbtCbJrb7, fill out and submit all requested information and questions, and submit your poetry, visual art, short film, essay, or short fiction (by upload or link, as appropriate, see below for details). If entering in multiple categories, please fill out a separate entry form for each entry. Please note that contact information will only be used for the administration of the Contest.

All contact information provided must be current, accurate and valid. Submissions must be received no later than April 30th, 2019 at 11:59 pm PDT according to Sponsor's time. No other methods of delivery will be accepted. All entries received by the end of the Contest Period that are complete and otherwise qualified will be eligible to win ("Qualified Submissions"). Sponsor reserves the right to disqualify any Contestant it finds to be tampering with the entry process or the operation of the Contest or violating these Official Rules. Contestants discovered entering under several names will be disqualified. Any submission of robotic, automatic, or programmed entries, or any entries submitted through other unapproved methods are void. Sponsor reserves the right to disqualify false Submissions or Submissions suspected of being false or fraudulent. Sponsor is not responsible for incomplete, late, lost, delayed, damaged, misdirected, incomplete, void, corrupted, garbled, illegible, or unintelligible Submissions and those Submissions are void and will not be accepted; nor is Sponsor responsible for any problems, bugs or malfunctions Contestants may encounter when seeking to enter their Submissions. Contestants are solely responsible for compliance with the Sponsor's terms and conditions.

By entering your Submission, you agree that you may legally enter this Contest, your Submission conforms to the Submission Guidelines (outlined below) and that Sponsor, in its sole discretion, may remove your Submission and disqualify you from the Contest if it believes your Submission fails to conform to the Guidelines.  

Submission Guidelines: Submissions should be relevant to the Contest's goal of illustrating the expansive role knowledge has in human life, and compatible with Wikimedia's mission and the free knowledge movement. For judging purposes, Submissions must be in English to the extent they included written or spoken language that Entrant would like judged. Inclusion of non-English language in a Submission is allowed, but such inclusions will not be translated and Entrants shall assume that all judges read and understand only English.

All entries must comply with the following limitations:

  • Poetry: Collections of poems are allowed, but no more than five (5) poems total may be submitted. Poetry submissions must be no longer than one hundred (100) lines in Times New Roman 12-point font, total (across all poems if submitting multiple).
  • Short fiction: No more than one story may be submitted, and it must be no longer than five thousand (5000) words.
  • Essays: No more than one essay may be submitted, and it must be no longer than five thousand (5000) words.
  • Short films: No longer than 10 minutes.
  • Visual Art: Collections of visual art are allowed, but no more than five (5) pieces total may be submitted.

Poetry, Short Fiction, Essay, and Visual Art submissions shall be made through the contest submission form at forms.gle/eqsqGpKPGbtCbJrb7. Short Film submissions shall be uploaded to a video sharing site (such as Vimeo or YouTube) and a link to the work shall be submitted at the time of entry.

All Contestants must license their Submissions pursuant to the Creative Commons Licenses Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International. To learn more about this license, visit creativecommons.org.

You must be the original author of everything in your Submission or have permission to use copyright protected material. So while we want you to be creative, you need to be careful. If you are thinking about using existing text, art, photos or the like, odds are that someone else owns a copyright to that material and you will need to get the copyright owner's permission before using that material in your Submission.

By entering, you warrant that your Submission does not infringe any third party's rights, and that you have obtained all necessary permissions from all relevant third parties to submit the Submission. If, in the sole discretion of Sponsor, your Submission constitutes copyright infringement, the Submission will be disqualified.  Participant must hold all rights to the entire Submission. Any materials contained in any Submission must be used with proper permission. Contestant agrees to indemnify Sponsor against any and all claims of infringement from any third party for any use by Sponsor of the Submission. Contestants may not be: 1) represented under contract that would limit or impair Sponsor's ability to use the Submission in any media form; 2) under a merchandising agreement; or 3) under any other contractual relationship, including but not limited to guild or union memberships, that may prohibit them from participating fully in this Contest, or from allowing Sponsor to use royalty-free, the Submission worldwide in all media in perpetuity.

No Submission may depict any offensive or obscene subject matter as determined in Sponsor's sole discretion.  Sponsor reserves the right to exclude any Submission that does not meet the above criteria, at Sponsor's sole discretion.

In the event of a dispute as to any Submission, the authorized account holder of the email address used to enter the Contest will be deemed to be the Contestant and must comply with these Official Rules. The "authorized account holder" is the natural person assigned an email address by an Internet access provider, online service provider or other organization responsible for assigning email addresses for the domain associated with the submitted address. Each Contestant may be required to show proof of being an authorized account holder.

Limit: Only one Submission per category per Contestant (total of five possible entries). Submissions received from any Contestant in excess of the stated limit will be void.

Prizes:

Published Submission Prize

Fifteen (15) Winners will receive the following prize package:

  • Winning Submission will be published in a digital magazine ("Zine")
  • An electronic copy of the Zine
  • An invitation to the award ceremony to be held in late June at Wikimedia's San Francisco Office ("Awards Ceremony")

Approximate Retail Value of prize package ("ARV"): US$0

Grand Prize: One (1) US$350 pre-loaded Visa card

Five (5) Winners will receive the prizes listed above under "Published Submission" as well as a Grand Prize of one (1) US$350 Rybbon Virtual Visa card with the value pre-loaded. ARV: US$350.

Selection: Wikimedia will select one (1) Grand Prize winner and 3 other winners for each category (essay, poetry, short film, visual art, and short fiction) ("Winners"). On or around May 31st, 2019, all Qualified Submissions will be reviewed by a panel of qualified judges, taking into consideration the following criteria:

  1. Creativity and originality of the submission (25%);
  2. Technical and artistic attributes of the submission (25%);
  3. Relation to prompt ("What does open access to knowledge mean to you?") (25%); and
  4. Quality and clarity of the submission (25%).

The Submissions with the highest percentage score in each category shall be deemed potential winners of the Grand Prize. In the event of a tie, the entry with the highest score in category 1 shall be deemed the winner. The Submissions with the next three highest percentage scores in each category shall be deemed potential winners of the Published Submission prize. In the event that a potential winner of the Published Submission prize becomes the winner of the Grand Prize in a given category, then Sponsor may, in its sole discretion, award the Published Submission prize to an alternate, as detailed below.

Winners will be notified by email, telephone, or personal message at Wikimedia's sole discretion. Winner will be required to respond as directed to the notification within 72 hours of attempted notification. Failure to respond timely to the notification may result in forfeiture of the prize; and, in such case, Sponsor may choose the next highest scoring Submission from among the remaining eligible Submissions.

If a Winner cannot be reached, is unable or unwilling to accept the Prize, or is disqualified for any reason, the applicable prize may be awarded to the next-highest scoring entry in the category that is not already a winning entry, if any, in Wikimedia's sole discretion. Only three (3) alternate Winners may be determined, after which the applicable Prize will not be rewarded.

Winners will be required to sign and return a Declaration of Eligibility and Liability/Publicity Release ("Declaration") and any other documents Sponsor may require, within 72 hours of receipt of the Declaration. Failure to timely return a signed Declaration or other required documents or the return of any prize notification as undeliverable will result in Prize forfeiture

Winners are not entitled to any surplus between actual retail value of prize and stated ARV and any difference between stated ARV and actual value of the prize will not be awarded. Winners are solely responsible for any expenses and taxes related to the prize, including travel expenses to the Awards Ceremony. Winners are also solely responsible for obtaining all necessary identification and travel documents.

No substitution, transfer, or cash redemption of prize is allowed, provided however that Wikimedia reserves the right to substitute with another prize of equal or greater value should the advertised prize become unavailable for any reason. If Winner is unable to participate in or accept the prize or any portion of the prize for any reason, Wikimedia shall have no further obligation to the Winner.

Wikimedia will not replace any lost, stolen, misdirected, or undelivered prizes. Any and all activities related to the prize are at the Winner's own risk and subject to whatever restrictions are imposed by the entities that govern such activities.  

Publicity. Sponsor reserves the right to use the Submissions to the Contest for purposes consistent with its mission and the Contest's objectives prior to, during, or after the Contest Period, in any media, and to use the name, likeness, hometown name, of any Contestant, including all or part of their Submission throughout the world, in perpetuity, without any compensation or prior review, unless specifically prohibited by law.  Contestants will not be paid for their Submissions or for granting Sponsor any of these rights.

Privacy. All personal information collected by Wikimedia in connection with this Contest will be used in accordance with Wikimedia's privacy policy located at: foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Privacy_policy and with the consent given by the Contestant at the time of entering a Submission. In addition, Contestants may receive email correspondence from, or on behalf of Sponsor, via electronic communication.  All personal information will be held on servers located in the United States. Contestants may subsequently opt-out of receiving further emails by following the opt-out instructions contained in any email communications received.

General Terms: Wikimedia reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to cancel, modify or suspend the Program should a virus, bug, computer problem, unauthorized intervention or other causes beyond Wikimedia's control, corrupt the administration, security or proper play of the Contest. By participating, Participants agree: (i) to be bound by the Rules and the decisions of Sponsor which shall be final and binding; (ii) to waive any right to claim ambiguity in the Contest or these Rules, except where prohibited by law.  By accepting a prize, Winner agrees to release Sponsor, including its parent, subsidiary and affiliated entities together with the respective directors, employees, officers, licensees, licensors and agents, and respective advertising and promotion entities and any person or entity associated with the production, judging, or administration of the Contest (collectively, the "Releases") from any and all liability, loss or damage arising from or in connection with awarding, receipt and/or use or misuse of prize or participation in any prize-related activities. Releasees are not responsible for computer malfunctions, network connections, email delivery problems, systems failure or incompatibility, typographical, technical or key-stroke errors, or interruptions in your internet service, and for incomplete, illegible, misdirected, misprinted, late, lost, damaged or stolen notifications.  Sponsor disclaims any liability for damage to any computer system resulting from participating in, or accessing or downloading information in connection with this Contest. Sponsor reserves the right to cancel or suspend the Contest, in its sole discretion, should it receive fewer than 200 entries, or due to circumstances beyond its control, including natural disasters. Submissions will not be returned and may be destroyed. Wikimedia may prohibit a Contestant from participating in the Contest or winning a Prize if, in its sole discretion, it determines such Contestant is attempting to undermine the legitimate operation of the Contest in any way by cheating, hacking, deception, or any other unfair playing practices, or is intending to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any other Contestants or Sponsor's representatives or agents.

Disputes: The internal laws of the State of California will govern disputes regarding these Rules and this Contest.  All cases and claims pertaining to this Program must be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction in the City of San Francisco.

OFFICIAL RULES and WINNERS' LIST: For a copy of these Official Rules or of the winner(s), send your request to asvitak@wikimedia.org. Request must be received within 90 days of the end of the Contest.  You may also find winners listed at wikimediafoundation.org/news/ after or around May 31st.

Contest Addendum - Publication Prize: Winners in writing categories (poetry, short fiction, and creative essays) will also be eligible for publication on the website of nonprofit digital publisher Electric Literature (electricliterature.com/).