Following correspondence with some SOTA participants concerning the use of the SOTA logo the Management Team feel that it is necessary to re-iterate the use of the SOTA programme’s intellectual property rights.
The SOTA programme is made available at no cost to participants; this includes access and (relatively) unrestricted use of SOTAwatch, the database and the reflector. Provision of these facilities is not made at zero cost, the Management Team has to pay for hosting and other costs related to these internet based facilities and to do this must raise some funds to pay the bills. We do this by selling awards and some merchandise at a small profit rather than making any form of charge for participation in the programme. In order to protect this income stream we do not allow free use of the SOTA logo for any COMMERCIAL purpose; if anybody wishes to use the logo for this purpose we will consider a licensing or royalty payment for this, subject to negotiation.
Participants are free to use the SOTA logo for any NON COMMERCIAL purpose including its use on individual participant’s qsl cards, on their personal websites, promotional literature and for local promotion of the SOTA programme.
If anybody can think of a fairer way of paying the costs for running SOTA please let us know.
Barry GM4TOE
on behalf of the SOTA Management Team