by Kieop » Sat Jan 30, 2010 2:27 pm
To clarify, we don't really have a rule governing collaborations or MEPs as such.
We probably should have a rule saying no MEPs in competition, but due to the technical nature of our awards, it's implied that they are not welcome in competition. How do you award Best Editing or Artistic Vision to an MEP? However, I see no harm in showing them at the con, so they can be entered in Exhibition, but again each contributor must give consent and then they cannot enter the Challenge, since Challenge and Exhibition are mutually exclusive categories.
As for collaborations, we are again mute in the rules. Technically our rule states that all required entry information must be provided, and that failure to so may result in a DQ. Providing false information will also result in a DQ (if caught). Also if you use footage from someone else's video, that person must be give consent and be credited, or it's plagiarism. So since failure to mention a collaborator could be considered omitting information or providing false info, it is not worth tying your hands with creating a separate rule, especially one that would be difficult to enforce, since the onus would be on us to prove that collaboration took place. Almost impossible. Besides we're too busy dealing with real entry fraud, like fake names.
Also demanding in the rules that collaborators be mentioned might be seen as encouraging collaboration and since we are an auteur awards, we would prefer to honour individual achievement. But we don't want to say no collaborations either, since that would be unnecessarily draconian.
It's just common sense. We don't say you have to put your collaborators' name on the entry form, but if you want both names on the trophy, both names have to appear on the form.