Weekly contest rules

Conditions of participation

Any registered and unregistered user of PhotoRush.com who confirms that he/she is a physical person, who has reached the permissible minimum age when he/she can participate in such activities in a country of his/her residence, and also that such activities in a corresponding country are not restricted or prohibited, can participate in weekly photo contest. If such activities are limited or prohibited in the country of user, the user is solely responsible for participation in the activities and for non-compliance of regulations of the corresponding State.

It is permissible to use photo editing software when optimizing images only in order to change the tone, color corrections, and cropping. Other manipulations or compositions are prohibited, except as otherwise specified in the description of a specific contest category. In the case of failure to observe the conditions of image optimization, a photo will not be approved for participation in the contest. Possible reasons why your photo wasn`t approved for participation in a photo contest.

A participation in the weekly photo contest is paid and depends on a chosen photo contest.

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Time of carrying out

A photo contest is carried out every week and takes place throughout a calendar year, except for the month of December. A complete cycle of 1 weekly contest is 3 calendar weeks:

• Week 1 - announcement of a contest categories and themes for the upcoming photo contests
• Week 2 - submission of photos to the contests announced on the previous week
• Week 3 - voting for submitted photos

Timetable of carrying out - begins on Monday at 00:00 GMT and ends on Sunday 23:59 GMT of each week.

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Photo contest categories and submission fees

There are 6 photo contests carried out every week:

• 3 contests with a prize fund 7000 Rushes™ (70* Eur) in each,
• 2 contests with a prize fund 25000 Rushes™ (250* Eur) in each,
• 1 contest with a prize fund 50000 Rushes™ (500* Eur).

* 10% of each weekly photo contest prize fund takes part in the formation of annual contest prize in its price category. Total 2010 annual contest prize fund will be added to 2011 annual contest prize fund and will be drawn at the end of next year.

Each photo contest is carried out under a certain theme and corresponds to its price category. There are twelve contest categories in total. Contest categories are alternated every week: 6 contest categories one week, 6 contest categories the following week, etc.

A contest category changes every week and is announced at 00:00 GMT on Monday.

The users of www.photorush.com can propose the themes/categories for a weekly photo contest by sending them to our entry staff at contests@photorush.com. The most interesting themes/categories may be chosen for a weekly photo contest.

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Photo submission to the contest

Each registered user of PhotoRush.com can submit an unlimited number of photos to each of weekly photo contests. The copyright of the photos submitted in a contest should belong explicitly to the participant of a contest.

The same photo cannot be submitted to both daily and weekly contests at the same time.

The same photo cannot participate in more than one of weekly contest categories at the same time.

A previously submitted or winning photo of a daily/monthly photo contest can be submitted to a weekly photo contest.

A previously winning photo of a weekly photo contest can not be submitted to a weekly photo contest once again.

A photo previously submitted to a weekly photo contest that did not win, can be submitted to a weekly photo contest once again.

Submitted photo dimensions must be at least 800 pixels on a long side.

The photos of each contest category which won first places in a weekly photo contest (3 photos by results of voting and 3 photos according to jury decision) cannot be submitted for subsequent weekly contests of a current year.

Photo submission to the weekly photo contest goes on throughout a calendar year except last five full weeks of the year.

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Voting

A voting process begins at 00:00 GMT on the first day of the week following the week during which the submission of photos occurred, and ends on the last day of the week at 23:59 GMT.

All registered and unregistered users of PhotoRush.com can participate in the voting of a weekly contest.

For participants

Each participant of a weekly contest may vote for an unlimited number of photos he/she likes, including his/her own photos.

• Basic/free voting

  A maximum number of free votes cast for any photo of the weekly contest, including your own photo, is 5.

  A participant of a photo contest can vote for free only once for each photo in the contest, regardless of the amount of votes awarded.

  Every day during a voting week, each participant of a weekly contest has an opportunity to earn 5 additional votes for one of his/her own photos in contest at no charge, regardless of the number of photos submitted to the contest. To qualify for these 5 additional votes a participant has to enter weekly photo contest section and choose one of the photos he/she likes the best among three offered photos on the pop-up.

  If a participant does not fulfill the requirements of the above clause, he/she does not receive 5 additional votes during a current day, which cannot be transferred to the next day and are not summarized.

• Additional/paid voting

  The minimal amount of paid votes cast for one photo of the weekly photo contest, including your own is 25.

  A participant of the photo contest can cast unlimited number of paid votes for each photo in weekly contest.

For other users

• For registered

  Any registered user of PhotoRush.com can vote for an unlimited number of photos he/she likes in a weekly contest.

  The maximum number of free votes cast for one photo of a weekly contest is 5.

  A user can vote for free only once for each photo in the photo contest, regardless of the amount of free votes awarded.

  The minimal amount of paid votes cast for one photo of weekly contest is 25.

  Any registered user of PhotoRush.com can cast unlimited number of paid votes for each photo in weekly contest.

• For unregistered

  Free voting is available only to registered users of PhotoRush.com.

  Unregistered users of PhotoRush.com can cast paid votes to an unlimited number of photos he/she likes in a weekly contest.

  The minimal amount of paid votes cast by an unregistered user for one photo of a weekly contest is 25.

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Voting fees

• For registered users

  Each registered user of PhotoRush.com is able to award 25 additional votes for each weekly contest photo, after the purchase of that feature by paying 100 Rushes™ using SMS, PayPal system and/or any other payment system offered on PhotoRush.com.

• For unregistered users

  Each unregistered user of PhotoRush.com is able to award 25 additional votes for each weekly contest photo, after the purchase of that feature using SMS and/or PayPal system. The fee is equal to 100 Rushes™*.

* The total list of SMS and other fees can be found here.

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Amount of a prize fund of weekly photo contests

An amount of the prize fund of a specific weekly photo contest depends on the cost of participation. A table shows a relationship between the cost of participation in a contest and amount of corresponding prize fund.

The prize is divided evenly into two parts in each contest category, following the results of user voting and jury decision.

*10% of each weekly photo contest prize fund takes part in the formation of annual contest prize in its price category. Total 2010 annual contest prize fund will be added to 2011 annual contest prize fund and will be drawn at the end of next year.

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Definition of winners

In each contest category, the winner who received the most votes and the winner chosen by the jury are revealed weekly, and share the prize fund of particular contest category evenly.

If two or more photos receive the same number of votes, then the average rating of received votes is additionally taken into account. The photo with a higher average rating wins.

First six winning photos of each contest category (3 photos by results of voting and 3 photos according to jury decision) which took first 3 places in a weekly photo contest will participate in an Annual photo contest.

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Announcement of results

Contest results are announced on the Monday of each week, following the week of voting.

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Prize reception

An amount of prize in Rushes™ is transferred to a registered user account on PhotoRush.com immediately after the announcement of contest results.

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Number of participants

In order to begin a voting phase of a weekly photo contest, a minimum number of photos must be reached depending on the amount of the prize fund of a particular photo contest:

*10% of each weekly photo contest prize fund takes part in the formation of annual contest prize in its price category. Total 2010 annual contest prize fund will be added to 2011 annual contest prize fund and will be drawn at the end of next year.

If a number of submitted photos to the particular weekly contest hasn’t reached the minimal limit within one week, then the submission phase of this weekly photo contest is prolonged for one more week, and the voting phase will not start.

If the number of participants in a particular contest within four weeks has not reached the minimum required for a photo contest, then the Rushes™ spent on photo submission will be returned to participants to their user accounts.

Maximum number of participants is unlimited.