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Contest changing rules question

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ChristianB

Junior Member
Hello. I have a question regarding the legality of an online contest changing its rules.

I recently entered a competition that required everyone who entered to make a remix of a song. It was run by a company called famecast (famecast.com) and the prize was to dj at a music festival called lollapalooza. Here it the contest webpage (Dell Lounge | Lollapalooza Last Band Standing Remix Contest).

There are three rounds of the contest. For the first round, anyone could enter and you were required to remix a song, submit it, and then have people vote for you. I did this and advanced to the semifinal round.

In the semifinal round, you were required to make a remix of a song that famecast provided and then gather up as many votes as you can. Here is where they changed the rules.

When the semifinals started the rules said " On July 20 at midnight, CST, the Top 2 with the most votes from both "Chicago" and "The World" will advance to the finals." Here is a link to a cached page i found of the rules page before famecast changed it:

Last Band Standing - How It Works - Powered by FameCast

The rules regarding the semi-final round are in the 4th paragraph and start with the sentence "The votes are reset and the Top 25 from each division..."

A few days into the semifinal round (do not know the exact date) the rules were changed to say this " From July 13 to July 20, artists will once again promote their new remix and collect as many votes as possible. On July 20 at midnight, CST, the Top 2 with the highest rating (combination of fan votes and promoter score) from both "Chicago" and "The World" will advance to the finals."

these updated rules are up at Dell Lounge | Lollapalooza Last Band Standing Remix Contest under the "How it Works" tab.

My question is, can they change the rules like this mid-competition?

I was ranked #1 for most of the competition until this new "promoter score" got added.

I emailed the CEO of famecast several times about the change in the rules by email and he stated "The official rules of the contest never stated that the winners of the Semifinal Round would be determined only by votes"

but as you can see, i have evidence that the rules were in fact changed.

Thank you for any help!

-Christian

Also, I live in California and the company that ran the contest is based in Texas
 


racer72

Senior Member
It's their game, they can change the rules if they want. If you were to have any damages that you could sue over, it would be the cost to enter the contest. The contest looks like it was free to enter so you have nothing to sue over.
 

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