gdanmitchell
Offline
• • • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
|
There is a serious side to this. I have not looked at the terms of the Pop Photo contests, so don't take any of what follows as a commentary on their policies until you have checked them out yourself. That said...
... Many (most?) such contests have some very onerous conditions attached to them, and photographers who value their work should read the terms very carefully and understand their implications before submitting work. The problems with some contests fall into two primary categories:
1. Many contests amount to what have been termed "intellectual property rights grabs," wherein a condition of entry (note: not winning!) is that all entrants grant very generous licenses to the sponsors of the contest and often to others with whom they are associated to use the photographs in essentially any way they want, without any compensation to the photographers and without crediting them for their work when it is used. The compulsory licenses that all entrants agree to by submitting their work would permit, for example, their work to be resold, to be used for purposes completely unrelated to the original contest, and are generally for an unlimited term, not limited geographically or by type of usage. So by entering your photograph - regardless of whether you "win" anything or not - you essentially give away your photograph with no recognition or compensation.
2. Many of the contest terms that I've read also have clauses that make the submitting photographer responsible for any legal action brought against the sponsors, their associates, or others who might use the photographs - remember, without the photographers' permission or knowledge and with no credit or payment. The photographer agrees to be solely responsible for defending against any claims. I'm no lawyer, but imagine a hypothetical circumstance in which you take a photo of the neighbor's kid. You and your neighbor think it is great, and your neighbor says, "sure, you can enter that in the contest," but you don't tell your neighbor all of the arcane stuff about licenses and liability and all that. You don't win the contest - very few people do! - but somewhere, someone in an office at the marketing company that worked with the contest sponsors sees your photo and thinks," Gee, I could use that for that nasty political ad," or "wonder how that photo of that little girl would look in our ad in [name the nasty magazine]," and licenses the image to them. Yes, they can - you agreed. Your neighbor is justifiably angry and decides to go after those using the image without permission... but wait... you gave them permission when you entered that photo... and you agreed to be the one who would defend their use.
Be very, very careful of contests!
Now, I'm certainly not saying that all contests are bad. Some have terms that are quite reasonable and even friendly to photographers. These generally are very clear about the very limited license that the contest will obtain to use the winner's photographs for purposes directly related to the contest only and some even clearly exclude other uses... and they don't include the onerous photographer liability clauses.
If your work is appropriate, enter these contests and thank the sponsors for their respect for the work and rights of photographers.
On the other hand, read all contest terms very carefully - and when you encounter those with the nasty, anti-photographer, rights-grabbing terms... run the other direction. You might even contact them - some of the contest organizers are unaware that the boilerplate terms that they adopted from other competitions are this horrible and they will change them. Unfortunately, some, including some big entities that should know better - including more than one that I personally support in other ways - don't get it.
Be careful out there! :-)
Dan
Edited on Aug 27, 2013 at 02:49 PM · View previous versions
|
