beware of photo contests

[johnnygoesdigital]

Recently,

I considered entering a photo contest by a well respected national publication.
The idea was to use this magazine's affiliation for promotion if I was featured or won. It's pretty standard to grant non exclusive rights to a contest, this way you still obtain ownership and can promote the photo elsewhere at the same time. However, there was a sentence in the rules that included:"but not limited to our publication" So, in effect your image could end up in "dudes with jugs" magazine. It seems that a magazine could just run a contest to insure photo content for future issues and not have to pay too much.

P.S. I buy DWJ's for the articles!

 

[Audii-Dudii]

I considered entering a photo contest by a well respected national publication.

The idea was to use this magazine's affiliation for promotion if I was featured or won. It's pretty standard to grant non exclusive rights to a contest, this way you still obtain ownership and can promote the photo elsewhere at the same time. However, there was a sentence in the rules that included:"but not limited to our publication" So, in effect your image could end up in "dudes with jugs" magazine. It seems that a magazine could just run a contest to insure photo content for future issues and not have to pay too much.

FYI, my local newspaper (The Arizona Republic) has a "reader's photos" feature and they take this one step further and require you to surrender ownership of the photo to them when you submit it, not even just if they run it! And, of course, there's no pay for having them run your photo, just glory...

 

[Bob]

In general don't do those things offered by publications which are intended to reduce the publication's costs for photography unless it is a long term personal contract.
JUST SAY NO
thanks
-bob

 

[Valentin]

The only usage I would agree to is the publication of the image in the context of the competition. No other usages and no copyright transfer (if they want to pay, then it's a different story).

If you don't value your work, nobody else will (the general you).

 

[ggriswold]

PDN has listings of these rights grabs every month and names names. There are always people who don't read the contract or don't care. What was the publication? Call 'em out.

 

[johnnygoesdigital]

All of the major publications are doing this. A recent search of photography contests came up with several: Nature Conservancy, Smithsonian, National Geographic, (which even charges you $15, just to enter!). Ideally, these publications would be great places to market your photography, but when they require non exclusive perpetual rights NOT LIMITED to their publications, then watch out!