Quick opinion sweep on terms of contest

I realize contests often have fairly broad terms but I wondered if the good people here have any thoughts on this one:

I'm rather new to these things. Sounds fair?

It sounds common for internet contests

Yes.

You have to grant them rights to use/copy the images otherwise they can't display them (which is the whole point).

They did include one point which is silly and a hang over from the days of paper magazines and submitting physical prints to competitions. It is the clause about them owning the copy you submit. This was done so that the competitions didn't have to go to the worry and expense of posting all the entries back to the right person. Instead they could just toss them in the bin. In the digital age this doesn't really make much sense. Who is going to ask them to send back a copy of a digital file.

When I see rules like this, the foremost question in my mind is "Who owns the copyright after the dust is settled?" The absence of one word in the second paragraph indicates that it would be you. That word is "exclusive". If it said that you granted them exclusive rights, it means that you could not offer the rights to anyone else. Even if you still owned the copyright, they could make trouble for you if you published the photo yourself or sought to gain revenue from it.

Be that as it may, the terms are all in their favor. You grant them the right to do anything they want with the photo, publish it anywhere, alter it, give it to others to do the same -- forever. And they wouldn't owe you a penny. So you need to decide on that basis whether or not you want to enter the contest. By way of example, I submit photos to the NY Renaissance Faire under similar terms. However, there is little chance that the photos would have commercial value to anybody but them and I have a chance of winning some pretty nice prizes. I won first place one year. But the shot was still not one that would have appeal outside the Ren Faire community. There was zero chance that I would try to sell it myself. On the other hand, I have declined entering other contests with similar terms because I didn't want to relinquish so many rights to a photo.

Cool, thanks all .

"By submitting any photo or information to [the site], you hereby grant to [the site]and its affiliates, subsidiaries, licensees and assigns, an irrevocable, perpetual and royalty-free right to use, reproduce, edit, display, transmit, prepare derivative works of, modify, publish and otherwise make use of the submitted photo or other information in any and all media, whether now known or hereinafter created, throughout the world and for any purpose. In addition to other things, the rights granted to [the site] includes but is not limited to the right to resize, crop, censor, compress, edit, feature, caption, affix logos to, and to otherwise alter or make use of the submitted photo;"

Fairly standard; also very undesirable.

Yup, 'for any purpose' would be a deal breaker for me; especially if there's also a proviso saying that you have to hold them harmless from all legal responsibility.

My objections are towards the word "perpetual". Honestly, the terms state that the site can edit and display your photos even outside the context of the contest. I guess this is usually perfectly fine, but it's something that raises my guard.