DIYPhotography.net

A good point; many web contests these days seem to really be cheap content creation for the sponsors. Why commission a photographer or license stock when hundreds of people will give you material for a much smaller prize or even just bragging rights?

Of course, some people are happy with such compensation, and it's a win-win. Aspiring professionals who are trying to establish the value of their work and learn about licensing rights should certainly heed your advice to read carefully.

Legally, I do wonder about the enforceability of such a boilerplate license grant. Does anyone know of a case where a click-through agreement like this went up against someone asserting their copyright, particularly one they had registered?

Also, I'm assuming these contests don't require model releases, so how much advertising use can these companies make without opening themselves to huge liabilities?

Without the emotional component of the subject being your own kid, I've seen MANY photo contests with similar terms -- you effectively are signing over the right for them to use your submitted photo any way they want to, EVEN if you won nothing in the contest.

Effectively, this is an easy way for marketing departments to obtain nearly-free images surrounding a particular theme of their interest. Pretty clever, but it certainly turns me off from submitting to any contest with such terms.

Be sure to read the fine print... your photos could end up where you never expected them.

It always pays to read the fine print before entering photos in competitions. You need to remember that many companies run photo competitions for the sole purpose of building up their portfolio of images cheaply!

Ah yes, the fine print is SO important.

I also felt funny about that part of the TOS when I was looking into that contest a few months ago. I too have an unbelievably cute child(no bias there), but cute as he his I would really prefer him not to be potentially plastered everywhere for any purpose they see fit, that's just too general to be acceptable.

I hope the other parents on that site know what they're getting themselves into.

Thanks for the email Udi this is a topic I feel very strongly about. The amount of competitions I don't enter now adays because of the terms and conditions has pretty much left me with no competitions to enter, frustrating! But I feel this is the same for many photographers and really needs to be made more aware among photographers. Great post man as it's definately a topic which needs to be greater brought to attention

Matthew - I could not agree more. Usually, this is something that an aspiring photog may consider. The worse that can happen is the loss of one good image. (does not sound like a great deal to me, but hey! each makes their own mind).

This case is a bit different, as it involves your child, and at worse, you can find your loved one everywhere without understanding that you did sign up for this.

As for model releases, they are not asking for one when they are publishing  on the web, I am do not know what is the policy.

Kevin - This is why I am always looking for a "you do not surrender your copyrights" sentence or similar when posting to a contest.

Martin, Amanda -  The fine print is a must when entering a contest. It may take another minute or two, but will ensure you do not give your work for a "winning chance"

I wish we can put something like this post on a billboard!
So manny times i talk to aspiring photographers saying they work for free and give images away FREE as long as they get exposure.
They are realy naive and bringing the quality of pix going around, not to mention prices, down.
Think about it,- why give it away free and you cant claim it as your own annyway. Make some money with it and have FULL braging debbs on it.

There are so many professional organisations who are basically just searching for free images. Because they know they *can* get them -- there are always going to be plenty of people who would be *pleased* if their image was on the side of a bus, without any fees.

Udi, thanks for following up with these people. Their less than professional response is really disappointing.

It's generally understood that companies will want to use a winning contest photo to promote the results of a contest but here they're asking for unlimited rights to the photo forever (and in loose, poor language, to boot).

They're either greedy (it would be possible to build a huge library of royalty-free stock images this way) or lazy (wanting a loose agreement so there will never be issues if the photo turns up elsewhere). I suspect the latter but neither is an excuse.

This is a good lesson in "reading the fine print".

I am so nervous about entering contests now, even joining site like Redbubble and Flckr to share/sell my images. Redbubble and Flickr reserve the right to lease your images too! I wish people would not do that!

SO no contests, redbubble, and limited postings on Flickr.

I entered my kid in The Cute Kid contest and was personally happy with it. It could be different from your point of view as I am assuming you are a photographer, however, most of the pictures on that site are amateur. And from the point of view of someone who wants their kid to be in modeling etc., exposure they might gain from that site is great for them. So I mean if your interest is really for your kid getting noticed, you shouldn't be upset when they do get noticed and used in promotions. Overall, that policy doesn't bother me and from the standpoint of someone who wants to get their kid cast or found by agents, i think the Cute Kid is great.

His4ever got me curious about the Flickr terms of service; the one licensing bit I can find is in the general Yahoo terms:

9. b. With respect to photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other than Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you remove or Yahoo! removes such Content from the Service.

The part I highlighted seems to say that they can only reproduce works in the context of showing them on the Flickr site. How do other people interpret that?

http://www.pro-imaging.org/

You'd be amazed how many names/companies have these sorts of blanket "we'll do whatever we want with the photo" terms. National Geographic is just one...

Facebook has a similar TOS...

Things that left a bad taste in my mouth:

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.
http://www.facebook.com/terms.php

I am glad I came across this post. I wanted to submit the photo of my daughter to the cute kid contest. Then I did more research and also found this baby photo contest site called Great American Photo. So I submitted a photo there without even reading their TOS. I am little concerned now....