Posted by Marie Strydom on July 13, 2007 at 11:40 AM
I have been looking for some photo contest to enter. Most contests are generated by photo magazines. To my shock I discovered that once you enter your photos you loose any rights to them. They belong to the publisher to use as they feel fit. Unless I am mistaken, this applies to National Geograpic too. The question I have, is being published worth it if you loose the rights to your photo?
There's quite a large distinction betweem being published and entering photo contests Marie, with lots of stops in between. The common wisdom here and elsewhere is that any contest which claims ownership of your photos simply for entering is a VERY BAD deal. I certainly wouldn't enter a contest under those conditions, no matter if it was run by my favorite charity or a big name magazine. Getting published in magazines and elsewhere is a separate consideration altogether.
Posted by Sharon Menke on July 13, 2007 at 12:10 PM
Sounds like they are trying to get something without having to pay for it. To me anyway.
Marie, are you actually losing all rights to your photos, or are they claiming non-exclusive, unlimited use rights? There's quite a difference IMHO as a non-lawyer...
For most contests in Brazil, the fine print actually says that you lose the rights over the image. In a very famous contest here, called "Arvore florida", not only the winners have to donate their rights, but the 500 best photographers do so too! This is going to be their 10th year and they have already published two books with the winners photos (not to mention all the other places they´ve used the images). That´s why I stopped entering contests around here! It´s outrageous!!
For most contests in Brazil, the fine print actually says that you lose the rights over the image. In a very famous contest here called "Arvore florida" not only the winners have to donate their rights, but the 500 best photographers do so too! This is going to be their 10th year and they have already published two books with the winners photos (not to mention all the other places they´ve used the images). That´s why I stopped entering contests around here! It´s outrageous!!
""and you grant *** and its subsidiaries and licensees a royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual license to display, distribute and reproduce the Photograph, in whole or in part, in any medium now existing or subsequently developed for editorial purposes without further review or participation from you."
This is the fine print in many competitions. Are they still going to credit the photographer ? It does not say so.
Pass it up. Unless they are paying you for exclusive rights and paying you well, walk on by. I would never enter anything, even if they had the rights to show it only on their site and for their usage. Nope, no way If the prizes are worth it in your opinion, maybe. Still would not give them rights to anything though.
Its a bit like on Dpreivew in the forums, you often see people say "Hey, I've been published" and guess what, they are either not paid or paid very little. IMO, there is no point to it. Just my opinion anyway.
Danny.
Posted by Walter Rowe on July 14, 2007 at 12:15 PM
The common term for these kinds of contest rules is "rights grabbing". The goal of the contest is for the sponsor and its affiliates to get tons of free photographs to choose from, and to be able to use them in any way they desire without any consideration to the authors of the photographs - not even photo credit. This is absolutely abhorent. It is worse than the royalty free sites out there that pimp your images at pennies to you and many dollars to the RF site. Read the fine print of every single photo contest. They tend to offer nothing worth "the cost" of entering.
Speaking of cost, many contests even ask you to pay per entry, so you end up paying them to use your photograph and you don't even get credited for it when they use it.
There are a few reputable photo contests. I think it would be great for people to post those that they feel are reputable (i.e. Nature's Best, Travel Photo Of the Year, etc).
Discussion
9 repliesThis is the fine print in many competitions. Are they still going to credit the photographer ? It does not say so.
Its a bit like on Dpreivew in the forums, you often see people say "Hey, I've been published" and guess what, they are either not paid or paid very little. IMO, there is no point to it. Just my opinion anyway.
Danny.
Speaking of cost, many contests even ask you to pay per entry, so you end up paying them to use your photograph and you don't even get credited for it when they use it.
There are a few reputable photo contests. I think it would be great for people to post those that they feel are reputable (i.e. Nature's Best, Travel Photo Of the Year, etc).