Last year I entered a photo competition on the BBC Nottingham website. I sent several pics in in different categories. However, due to all that Blue Peter misnamed cat nonsense the comp was suspended in July and, as it seemed like nobody really had the stomach for doing the work it was quietly abandoned.

Imagine my surprise therefore to find that, despite not bothering with the comp, they have gone on to turn one of my entries (along with those from several others) into a 'desktop calendar' and offering it as a free download with no mention of copyright. The rules of the comp required you to allow the beeb to use the entry pic on their website but, originally, if you were one of the winners you would provide a further hi res pic to be printed for an exhibition and used in the desktop calendar. To me that would be a separate permission and anyway, I see my original greement for their use as being conditional on it being a competition entry to be judged in good faith. No comp, no permission. And they did clearly state that copyright remains with the photographer.

The page is here [link] and mine is the traffic trails one for September.

Its ironic that earlier I was reading a post on a forum about how closely the BBC protect their own images, apparently even threatening legal action against someone who designed knitting patterns to make woolly Dr Who characters...