Photo Contest Question

[canoli]

Hey Guys -


I've never submitted anything to a photo contest so it's all new to me. But something in PopPhoto's rules to their "Your Best Shot" contest caught me by surprise.


"By entering, you grant to Sponsor a non-exclusive, worldwide,
royalty-free license to edit, publish, promote, republish at any time in
the future and otherwise use your submission, along with your name and
likeness, in any and all media for any purpose, without further
permission, notice or compensation (except where prohibited by law)"


Sounds like they can do whatever they want with your image, for as long as they want, and you'll receive no notice or compensation... although they do give you a byline right? (I'm guessing that's what "along with your name and likeness..." means).


Is all this pretty standard? This contest is free btw (up to 5 submissions per month)...just thought you should know. Maybe contests requiring fees are different?


I was surprised by the "republish at any time..." stipulation; I assumed all rejected submissions were deleted after the judging.


Anyway, thanks for any thoughts you can share - I appreciate it!


Here's a link to PopPhoto contest:


http://www.popphoto.com/yourbestshot?page=0,0

[Sheiky]

Hey mate,


no this isn't standard and to be honest these are some crappy rules...


Often the rules say that they may publish the winner of the contest in their magazine or website or whatever, which looks pretty logical to me. But after that I assume they can use it for their own purposes like publishing it later again etc. But this sounds to me that they will have total rights of your photo.

in any and all media for any purpose, without further
permission, notice or compensation (except where prohibited by law)"

It sounds to me like they will have the power of your rights. If they want to sell it to other publishing services, they could etc.. without paying you a penny.


I don't know if this isn't normal in the States, but around where I live these standards aren't normal and I would think twice about it.


Pros: your photo with name could be published in a lot of ways, it's hard to get that opportunity yourself.


Cons: your photo could win giant prices or publications and you won't take any credit for it, but a small nametag perhaps.


Jan

[canoli]

Ah...thanks Jan - I had a feeling these rules were a little unusual...

[Jonathan Huyer]

Darwin Wiggett (Canadian nature photographer) has some very interesting comments on this topic. Reference his blog:


http://darwinwiggett.wordpress.com/category/rant/

[canoli]

Thanks Jonathan - that was interesting - seems he has the same issue with Canadian Geographic as I do with Popular Photography.


I wonder what happens if a client I'm working for likes the winning image and wants to use it in one of their ad campaigns...


I wouldn't mind winning and finding out!