FSC rules

==The Contest==
 The purpose of this Contest is to stimulate the output of original songs of high quality in the field of popular music, by encouraging competition among countries through the international comparison of their works. 
==Participation==
* Any independent country is allowed to participate, regions & territories are not allowed to enter the contest separately.
* In order to be part of a jury the FSC Player either resides or has the citizenship of the country they would like to represent. Any exception to this rule needs to be approved by the FSC Management team.
* In order to join the FSC game, new members will need to contact the FSC recruiter who will then get in touch with the Head of Jury for the country the member would like to join.
* There is no maximum for members per jury, the minimum is one member.
* It is possible to start a new Jury each month if the jury the player would like to join has not been created yet.
* A minimum of 13 countries is necessary to start an edition. If not enough juries are going to be available at the first of the month, that edition will be cancelled.
* If a jury has 3 or more members a Head of Jury needs to be elected by the jury members. That individual is responsible to keep the list of jury members up to date, forward the entry selected to the Head of FSC as well as the votes once they have been collected and counted. It is up to each jury to elect the Head, FSC Management will only interfere if the jury is unable to come up with a decision on their own.
* A maximum of 40 countries shall be allowed to participate.
* Once the maximum of participating countries was reached, new countries joining the contest will be placed in the “Rest of the World” jury. This jury consists of members from countries not currently represented at FSC. The members will internally select a song from any country that is part of that jury. The country chosen to represent the “Rest of the World” shall be listed under such name however once it earns a full spot, it will at that point take its record and scores with it. Once an active country withdraws, that nation shall be replaced with a country from the “Rest of the world” jury based on seniority.
==Entries==
# Each jury will decide on their entry. The FSC Management will not get involved with the selection process and it is up to the Head of Jury to submit the entry in a timely manner.
# The purpose of this contest is to promote new releases on a monthly basis. An entry must be maximum 10 months old. The CD/Single Release/Digital/Album/Video/Concert Release date will be considered as the official release date. The same goes for songs which have already leaked before the official release date.
# The FSC Management will have the Final say on if a song is eligible to enter or not. Arguments, complaints are not acceptable after a Final decision was made.
# Artist Rules
## Singers must have the citizenship, spent the majority of their life or made their career in the country they are representing
## Duos need to have at least one singer who is from the country they are representing (please see rules under “a”)
## Foreign “featured” singers are allowed 
## Bands need to be from the country they are representing. The maximum of band members not from the country they are representing is 2. (please see rules under “a”) however at least half of the band needs to be from the representing country. 
# Covers are not allowed, Instrumentals are allowed. Samples (songs which are new but based on certain sounds from a previous song.) are not allowed
# Songs that take part in following Contests are not eligible to enter: Eurovision Song Contest, Junior Eurovision Song Contest, Asiavision Song Contest. This rule also applies to songs that take part in National Selections/Finals for any of these contests. 
# The songs or artists are not allowed to be revealed by the juries until all entries have officially been announced by the Head of FSC. 
# The Head of Juries need to submit their songs before the given deadline. Failure to do so will result in disqualification for that month.
# Every jury can submit a backup song in case the first choice breaks the FSC rules. In case a song will be disqualified, the backup song will automatically replace that entry. If a jury decides not to send a backup song and their entry is disqualified, they will have to sit out that edition.
==Voting==
* The first 7 days after announcing the songs is the “Evaluation period”. All Members will have the opportunity to listen and (if required) report any entries that breaches the rules of FSC. Those members are required to contact FSC Management via PM who will then replace that entry with the backup song.
: No jury is allowed to vote during the “Evaluation period”. Any votes received within that period will not be counted and the Head of Jury will have to submit them again. 
* The Voting is in Eurovision Song Contest Style. The Top Ten entries of each jury will be awarded the following points: 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. This rule only applies to the final jury vote. It is up to the jury to internally decide on a voting system. After the Final results have been announced every jury MUST reveal how the members of their jury voted.
* Juries cannot vote for their own entry
* The Head of the Jury will forward the votes to the Head of FSC once the votes from all jury members have been collected and added up. 
* If a single member of a jury fails to vote it is the Head of jury's responsibility to inform FSC Management. It is required to report a member if they do not vote for two consecutive editions. FSC Management will review and decide if that member should be removed from the jury. Once a member was deleted due to inactivity they need to get approval to re-enter again. 
* If no votes were received from a Jury they will receive a 20 Point penalty and the Head of Jury will be demoted to regular member and a new Head shall be elected.
* Failure for a jury to vote prior to the voting deadline will add a warning to the country's account. A second warning will result in a ban from the contest for one month. That country will be able to rejoin the contest once they sit out for one edition. Warnings will expire after 1 year.
==Results==
* The head of FSC will add up all the votes received from the juries and will reveal them on the esctodayforum board on a monthly basis. 
* The entry with the most points will win the FSC. 
* In case of a tie for any position. If two or more countries end up receiving the same amount of points the country who obtained points from the highest number of countries shall be given priority. If the tying songs have received votes from the same number of countries, the highest number of 12-point scores shall be decisive. If the winner still cannot be determined by this procedure, the number of times ten points have been awarded shall be the deciding factor. If necessary, this method shall continue until account has been taken of the number of times one point has been awarded.
==Miscellaneous==
* It is unacceptable to call out members or juries in public questioning their song selection or votes. Nobody wants to be called like that especially considering that in most cases those accusations turn out to be untrue. Any concerns need to be addressed in private. Please contact one of the FSC Mods. 
Category:FSC