It is our duty to inform our readers that there has been a disqualification of an entry that won a sponsor award in this contest.
Entry number AoB_176 which won the ABFF (Asia-Pacific Bonsai Friendship Federation) Award has been disqualified due to the entrant not having full copyright to the photograph submitted.
The rules of this contest plainly address such issues and our decision on this matter was based solely on the rules as presented. The following are direct quotes from the rules of this contest:
"I have read and understood the rules of the contest and agree to abide by them. I have full copyright to all text and/or photographs I am submitting and I grant the Art of Bonsai Project and International Bonsai full permission to use any or all of the text and/or photographs submitted by myself in such manners as described in the rules and in future publications of any type as related to showcasing, promoting, featuring, or publishing the submissions to this contest as approved by the Art of Bonsai Project. I understand that any other usage of the text and/or photographs will require addition permission from myself and that, other than permissions given here, I retain full copyright to submitted materials as described."
"The entrant must have full copyrights to all photographs submitted."The sponsor and the judge/judges for this award are in the process of selecting another winner and we will update the results at
http://artofbonsai.org/galleries/aobawards2008.php as soon as the selection has been made.
Editorial Staff