I am not a lawyer, but my guess is that some court decided that contests of 
this type are raffles of some kind.
That argument could certainly be supported by one of the conditions of the contest:

"By entering this Contest, entrant acknowledges and agrees that: ...  (iii) 
Contest Entities and their designees have the right, unless prohibited by law, 
to use their names, cities and states of residence, voices, pictures and 
likenesses, without compensation, notification or approval, for the purpose of 
advertising and publicizing the goods and services of the Contest Entities and 
all matters related to the Contest, in any manner or medium, now or hereafter 
known, throughout the world in perpetuity; (iv) Sponsor does not have, nor shall 
have in the future, any duty or liability, direct or indirect, vicarious, 
contributory, or otherwise, with respect to the infringement or protection of 
any copyright in and to entrant’s Submission."

In other words, your photo can be used in the magazine or for advertisement 
purposes whether or not you win the contest.  You are giving Audubon and the 
magazine far more than your entrance fee.  It would be easy in my uneducated 
opinion for a court to decide that this provision means that people submitting 
objects of equal value to the sponsor get unequal rewards, in other words the 
operation is a kind of lottery. 

Whether this type of offer should really be forbidden as a policy is, of course, 
a matter of opinion.  No one is deceived since the conditions of entry are 
readily available.  Personally, however, I decided I wasn't interested.



Nico Sarbanes wrote:
> Hey everyone-
>
> Sorry to keep this going, but numerous people have pointed out to me, as I knew myself, that contests such as those run by MD DNR and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation require entry fees, so it does not make sense that MD residents should be restricted in this case. However, if you look at the FAQs page of the Audubon awards (http://www.audubonmagazinephotoawards.org/faqs.html), you'll see that it says that MD has state laws against entry into such contests.  I'm just as confused as anyone.
>
> Nico Sarbanes
> Baltimore
>
> --- On Sat, 6/13/09, Melanie Lynch <> wrote:
>
> From: Melanie Lynch <>
> Subject: Re: [MDOSPREY] OT: Audubon photo contest-why not MD?
> To: 
> Date: Saturday, June 13, 2009, 3:38 PM
>
>   
>> Hey everyone-
>>
>> It turns out that MD and six other states prohibit participation in contests that require an entry fee.  Thank you to those who drew my attention to the FAQ section of the website. I'm still slightly confused, as I have entered contests that required entry fees in the past and had no problems, but I'm just going to drop it for this one.
>>
>> Nico Sarbanes
>> Baltimore
>>     
>
>
> How very interesting. Where did you learn that? The Maryland DNR has always required an entry fee for their photo contest - same for Chesapeake Bay Foundation as well.
> -- Melanie
>
>
>
>       
>
>   


-- 
Maurice Barnhill 
  [Use ReplyTo, not From]
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Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716