Read the Rules First: AI Disclosure, Rights and Eligibility in Creative Competitions

In April 2023 the German artist Boris Eldagsen stood on a stage in London and turned down a prize. His image, Pseudomnesia: The Electrician, a black-and-white portrait of two women in the style of a 1940s family photograph, had won the Creative category of the Sony World Photography Awards’ open competition. It was made with an AI image generator. Eldagsen said he had entered to test whether photography awards were ready for AI images, and declined the award with a short statement: AI is not photography.

The organizer said that Eldagsen had confirmed the AI “co-creation” before the winners were announced, and that it had been supportive of his entry. Both sides believed the rules were on their side. The rules had simply been written for a world where every entry came out of a camera.

Most competitions have updated their rules since then. The new rules are not all the same, and the difference between “AI-assisted work is accepted” and “work must not be generated by AI” can decide whether your entry is judged or disqualified. Here is what to look for.

The clauses that decide your entry

Clause	Usually found under	What to look for
AI policy	Eligibility, Entry requirements, or a separate AI section	Banned, allowed as a tool, AI-only, or limited to named tools
Disclosure	Submission, Entry form	Whether you must name the tools, describe the process or supply prompts
Originality and ownership	Warranties, Terms	A promise that the work is yours and does not infringe anyone else’s rights
Third-party material	Warranties, Content rules	Reference images, other people’s prompts, real people’s likenesses, logos
Rights granted	License, Use of entries	What the organizer may do with your work, for how long, and whether you are paid
Eligibility	Who may enter	Country, age, student or professional status, staff and family exclusions
Deadline	Key dates	The date and the time zone it is stated in
Prior publication	Eligibility, Entry requirements	Whether the work may have been shown or published before
File requirements	Technical specifications	Pixel size, ratio, format, file size, naming

On an AIContestList listing, the deadline is shown with the organizer’s time zone, and the key facts link to the official rules. The listing summarizes; the official rules decide.

Reading the AI policy

AI clauses tend to fall into four kinds of wording:

1. Banned: “Work must not be created, in whole or in part, using generative AI.” Even AI upscaling or background fill may count.
2. Allowed as a tool: “AI tools may be used as part of the creative process.” Usually comes with a disclosure requirement.
3. AI-only or AI category: “Entries must be created using generative AI.” Often asks for prompts or a process description.
4. Named tools: “Entries must be created with [Tool].” Common in brand challenges; other tools disqualify the entry.

If a clause is ambiguous, for example it bans “AI-generated images” but says nothing about AI-assisted editing, email the organizer before you enter and keep the answer.

Writing a disclosure

A good disclosure is short, factual and specific. It says which tools you used, for which part of the work, and what you did yourself:

“Generated in AIContestList AI Studio with [model] from my own pencil sketch used as a reference image. About 40 drafts; the final selected and refined over six iterations. Color, crop and small corrections done by hand in [editor].”

If the rules ask for prompts, give the final prompt and say that it was refined over several runs. A process log kept while you work makes this a two-minute job; Same Prompt, Different Image lists what to record.

Assume your disclosure can be checked. Google marks images from its models with an invisible SynthID watermark and C2PA Content Credentials, and OpenAI attaches Content Credentials to its images as well. Hiding AI use is both against most rules and increasingly easy to detect.

Rights clauses: normal and not

Almost every competition needs some rights to your entry: to show it in a gallery, print it in a catalog, post it on social media. That is normal. What varies is how far it goes.

Usually reasonable	Worth questioning
Non-exclusive license	Exclusive license, or assignment of copyright
Use connected to the competition and its promotion	Use “for any purpose”, including advertising unrelated to the competition
Credit given whenever the work is shown	No credit requirement
Applies to winners and shortlisted work	Applies to every entry, including those that did not win
Limited in time	Perpetual and irrevocable

One column is not automatically good and the other bad; a large prize can justify broader rights. But you should know which column you are agreeing to before you press submit.

AI, ownership and what you can promise

Most rules ask you to warrant that the work is original and that you own the rights in it. With AI work, that promise has a complication. In the United States, the Copyright Office’s registration guidance requires applicants to disclose AI-generated material and exclude it from their claim, and its 2025 report found that prompts alone do not make you the author of an image. Your own sketches, photos, edits and arrangement are where your ownership is clearest.

That is one more reason to put something of your own into an entry: it makes the work stronger, and it makes the originality warranty easier to give honestly. Can You Reuse Someone Else’s AI Prompt? covers credit and copyright in more detail. This is general information, not legal advice.

A checklist before you submit

• The AI policy allows how I made this work.
• My disclosure names the tools, the process and what I did by hand.
• I have the right to use every reference image and any borrowed prompt.
• I am eligible by country, age and status.
• I know the deadline in my own time zone.
• I have read the rights clause and accept it.
• The work has not been published if the rules forbid it.
• The file meets every technical requirement.

To find competitions whose rules suit your work, see How to Find AI Art Competitions Worth Entering and the open competitions directory. For the route from brief to finished file, read From Brief to Entry in One Weekend, and for how the site fits together, AIContestList, Explained.

Questions people ask

Can I enter AI art in a regular art competition?

Only if its rules allow it. Some competitions ban generative AI, some accept it as a tool, and some have separate AI categories. Read the eligibility and entry sections of the official rules, and ask the organizer if the wording is unclear.

Do I have to disclose that I used AI?

If the rules ask, yes, and many now do. When the rules are silent, disclosing is still the safer choice: images from major AI tools increasingly carry watermarks and Content Credentials that can reveal how they were made.

Can the organizer use my entry in its advertising?

Only as far as the rights clause allows. A license to show entries in connection with the competition is common; use for unrelated advertising, without credit or for an unlimited time, is broader than usual and worth questioning before you enter.

What time zone is a competition deadline in?

The organizer’s, unless the rules say otherwise. AIContestList listings show the deadline with the organizer’s time zone; convert it to your own and add it to your calendar.

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