what's your take on competitions and licensing?

[Fidel Marcus]

I'm talking about entering photo contests, from what I have seen 99% of the time they require licensing of the image(s) submitted and here's an example of the fine print;

"By submitting content, you hereby grant to the Bay Area News Group a nonexclusive, perpetual, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, irrevocable, worldwide license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, distribute, and publicly display and perform that content for any purpose and in all media now known or hereinafter created, including without limitation by making that content available for downloading by third parties or by incorporating all or part of that content into other materials. You hereby irrevocably waive any claim based on moral rights, if any, in that content."

you can say I can be pretty selfish when it comes to holding the copyrights to all my images (depending on how nice the image is) or from past experience when I had done product photography the client would naturally want to own the copyright to images of their product.

So I'm not sure if I'm just reading too far into it or if in fact this is a cheap easy way for publishers to acquire mass licensing of images for pennies, what's your take on it? or personal experience?

 

[Lesley Jones]

I was lucky enough to win my camera in a competition about four years ago. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. Admittedly I was also losing my Mum at the time, but they just made it worse. I will say upfront that the national newspaper involved were always very good, but the manufacturer were truly awful. I got an e-mail to phone the paper and I was told about the win. The manufacturer would send the prize. It took over two months from memory. I kept e-mailing the paper who were very sorry - they would chase and give it another week or two. Then I got a mail from the manufacturer saying they were posting a different camera (not the new model they had been advertising for months). True... it was in the small print, but I never expected them to pull a stunt like that, especially when they said voting had been unanimous. I copied in the newspaper who ensured I got the camera originally advertised.

They had an exhibition of the winning image and runners up - so they could have made a few people very happy. My image was printed about 6 foot long on canvas and I wasn't consulted at all. I also wasn't told about the exhibition until after the event. Nice one!

I don't recall that they took on copyright as such, just the ability to use the image whenever they saw fit. I haven't actually seen it used, but then I haven't looked very hard. It's true that I wouldn't have taken nearly as many photographs as I have done over the past four years and I have many new images that I love. Eventually I grew to love the camera as well, but it is an experience that I would rather forget. I only enter the IPA (when I can afford it) and wouldn't touch another competition with the proverbial barge pole

 

[Ronald Atchley]

I doubt I'll ever have an image for a competition like your talking about
but, if that time comes, I don't think I'd give the rights away for just a
chance to win. I'm not much on playing lotteries either but would throw
away a fiver on a lottery before I gave up rights to an image.
Ron

 

[Lesley Jones]

Just to add that I would never give away copyright to any of my images - they are only slightly less precious to me than my animals. (OK - the husband fits in there somewhere depending on how he's been behaving recently). I think you will find that most decent competitions don't claim copyright, just the ability to use the image in connection with the competition in any way they see fit. In my case I never thought I would win and only entered because a friend had bothered to e-mail all the details. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to win a digital camera because I was firmly in the film camp at the time. I think fate was trying to tell me something

 

[Fidel Marcus]

I have to admit, I too never look for these competitions or even care to compete with my photography I prefer that the audience appreciate it for what it is rather than being convinced whether my work is better or worse than the next person.
What started happening is my fiance began to be lured by the "vacation package 1st place prize" and decided to email me whenever she found one of these competitions, anyway I have always been apprehensive about these things and after reading the fine print on a few I decided I would never even consider any type of competition again, she understands

Great minds seem to think alike, thanks gang...

 

[Gavin Robert]

If I can give my 2 cents Fidel, my images that are dear to me I only enter into print competitions which I turn up to with my prints and go home with my prints. For digital file competitions I will only ever consider using images which I'm prepared to lose. This can be be fruitful as you never know what hits the judges spot on the day so what you would be happy to loose could be the image of the day, nothing gained nothing lost.
So don't avoid the competition, consider entering with something you'll be happy to loose and at least you're in with a chance and your fiancée will at least feel like you're both singing from the same hymn sheet.

One other point I'd like to make and I have to say that I'm not comfortable with saying negative things about photography competitions being so new to the forum, but, I have had experience where a particular UK competition organiser used to have many advertising agents on his books and so he geared his competitions towards what images his clients were looking for, and under the same terms of entrants loosing there copyright.

My take on photography is that it should be shared but not abused. I haven't sold any volume of images and in fact if I were a photography business my bank manager would have already sectioned me, but what I do share I like to share with people who care about photography and not some jerks who want to make a buck out of us behind our backs.

I for one would like to see you enter Fidel. Do they have a theme for entries or is it an open competition? How about setting yourself a goal of bagging an image this week and submitting it for entry? We would all need to see it first of course but we couldn't guarantee that the copyright would be protected

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Some online comps appear to just be fishing trips to grab as many free images as possible - typically the one's advertised on Facebook!

Magazine comps etc, I treat as legit, but haven't entered anything for years - apart from this year, where I entered the Outdoor Photographer Magazine competition - must see how that's going...

Ah, I see I signed up to the following!

USE OF ENTRY: By submitting an entry, entrant grants the Sponsors and their designees an irrevocable, royalty-free, nonexclusive, worldwide perpetual license to use the entry and his/her name, city and state of residence for credit purposes in Sponsors' online galleries, without further compensation, notification or permission, unless prohibited by law. In addition, each winner grants to the Sponsors and their designees an irrevocable, royalty-free, nonexclusive, worldwide perpetual license to use and distribute the entry (as submitted, or as cropped by the Sponsors), and his/her name, city and state of residence for credit purposes, in any and all media now or hereafter known, including without limitation in Outdoor Photographer, Digital Photo and Digital Photo Pro magazines, for purposes of promotion of this Contest except as otherwise stated herein, without further compensation, notification or permission, unless prohibited by law.

Mmmmmmmmmm........

I do enter local comps, such as the San Diego Fair - terms and conditions seem reasonable, I like the challenge.

I guess I'm not too fussed - I've had to go after websites for stealing my pics before now, but other than that no issues to date.

 

[Darren Bradley]

Most competitions are just fishing expeditions to grab royalty-free photos, as Chris said. I avoid most like the plague. I do enter a few, but generally avoid them when the grant unlimited rights to my work. Competitions sponsored by professional organizations like AIA or ASMP tend to be better, but not always.

 

[Fidel Marcus]

Gavin thanks for the positive input on this topic, I don't believe that every competition out there is a scam but most often my image is worth more than the prize to me and like a few others said there are competitions in print or ones hosted by reputable entities where concerns like these are not as much of an issue and those are the ones I'll be interested in...

the other thing I did not like about the competition in question is that they are accepting images from "the reader" so they don't even care if the applicant is using someone else's image and that matter alone is enough for me to be disinterested...

As far as the fiance goes, she's quite a brilliant and well accomplished marketing professional so she understands these concerns and without hesitations agrees with my point of view

 

[Larry Bolch]

It is a very good deal for the sponsoring organization. I worked for a big renaissance festival that held an annual "Tournament of Images". There were quite substantial prizes which were contributed by companies, in exchange for inclusion in advertising. Say a cruise line contributes the prize. On every poster and program, or ad in the media, the contest is mentioned and the cruise is prominently featured as the grand prize. It is a good deal all around—winning the cruise is also an incentive to attend the Faire. Transfer of rights to use the images, was spelled out everywhere in everyday English.

The faire site is beautiful and very well maintained. In the early years we were very strict about anachronisms. In fact we pegged the date as 1533, and props and costumes had to conform. "General Hippy–1969", costuming was totally unacceptable, though many faires seem to be mostly populated by it. An amazing wealth of information and costume patterns have survived and are readily accessible. So are instructions on manners and customs, and we drilled the cast on them. The goal was to require the absolute minimum of "suspension of disbelief" by the patrons. It was, however a show, not a living museum, and there was always lots happening in every direction. We did everything we could to make it a no-fail source for even the most amateur of photographers.

When I became director, I did a one-hour lecture each year in how to play to the camera, ensuring that the patrons would get excellent images. "Feel the sun on your face, with one eyebrow or the other turned toward it." And people DID get excellent shots—everyone became a street photographer. And they returned to the Faire a week or so later with prints for the cast. A vibrant, well-trained and costumed cast in a beautiful setting ensured great photographic material. We made shy photographers feel like Henri Cartier-Bresson! If a patron was shooting decisive moment, we continued with our performance. If someone asked us to pose, we tried to accommodate, without breaking character.

With the contest, they Faire was deluged with content, but most of it was was crap-snapshots. There was also some well-done work—at least four or five usable images each year. Most of the pictures later used for promotion came from the prize winners. If you won a five day cruise, would you feel ripped off if a small business used it in an ad? Non-winning crap-snaps were simply culled. Since the images were so specific to this event, there was no commercial value outside of the Faire's own advertising. While the Faire certainly had the right to sell them, no possible market existed for them.

Is it a rip? The owners were paying off the land, plus the start-up loans and continuing expenses. While it eventually became profitable, they had just seven weekends to carry them through the whole year. They could not afford to hire top pros to spend days shooting. Prizes were substantial—and most of the entries were unusable. While rights were officially transferred, if the shooter used one for some other reason, it would have never occurred to the owners to press a copyright violation suit. The transfer of rights just protected them from the same.

Most contests are similar. It is not in my nature to enter one, even with the inside knowledge I gained. However, it is up to each individual to evaluate who is running the contest, and if the risk to ones work is substantial. When you think about submitting an image, try first to sell it for more than the value of lowest prize. If you succeed, don't bother with the contest. It will also make it clear how difficult it is to find a buyer for existing work.