Photo competition or rights grab?

I was considering entering a photo in the Relationships Australia 60th Anniversary Photographic Competition www.relationships.com.​au/news-items/what-matters-most-pho... but some alarm bells started to ring when I read the Conditions of Entry.

Clause 22 reads:

Each entrant assigns to the Promoter all copyright and other intellectual property rights in each photo and description sent in as part of an entry in this competition. Each entrant acknowledges that the Promoter, as owner of the copyright in the photographs and descriptions, may reproduce the photographs and the descriptions in any media or marketing for any purpose without permission or payment. The entrants agree to waive all their rights, including moral rights, in the photographs entered by the entrants in this competition.

The promoter is one of the News Limited companies.

This clause means that by entering the competition the photographer gives up all rights to any photos submitted and the Promoter can use them for any purpose they like.

I wrote to the competition organisers expressing my concerns and recieved a curt "if you don't like the conditions no one is making you enter" but they failed to address the question of why the promoter needs all entrants to hand over their copyright in order to promote the competition.

These type of terms seems to be more prevalent in photo comps and I can't see any reason why the organisers of any competition need all entrants to hand over all ownership of their photos to conduct a successful competition.

I also wrote to the National Director of Relationships Australia and received this response which raised more questions than it answered (they just passed the buck and didn't answer why the promoters needed full copyright etc)

Thank you for your feedback about the recent announcement of our 60th Anniversary Photo Competition and your support for the work of RA. We have had comments from a number of professional photographers raising concern about the copyright issue.

The terms and conditions of this competition sit strictly within the domain of The Weekend Australian. As such we have passed your comments on to them, and further communication can be addressed to: whatmattersmost@theaus​tralian.com.au .

In engaging in this promotion with The Weekend Australian, Relationships Australia had in no way intended to deprive professional photographers of their livelihood; in fact, our intended audience for this promotion is amateur photographers. Your responses have made us aware of the intensity of the issue for professionals in this arena. Any use of the photographs by

Relationships Australia will only be with the permission of the person who submitted the photograph and acknowledgement will be made.

I trust that this information will be reassuring to you and clarifies our position. Thank you for the opportunity to respond to your concerns.

The terms and conditions are in stark contrast to those at this competition being conducted by the Daily Telegraph UK - www.telegraph.co.uk/co​nnected/main.jhtml?xml​=/connected/e...

It has a licence clause rather than a copyright grab - something that should be used in all photographic competitions.

6. Copyright in all images submitted for this competition remains with the respective entrants. However, in consideration of their providing the Competition, each entrant grants a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual licence to Telegraph Media Group Limited to feature any or all of the submitted images in any of their publications, their websites and/or in any promotional material connected to this competition.

Note the "connected to this competition" sentence which limits the licence granted.

I'm curious what others think about these type of rights grabs that are occurring with photography "competitions".

Simple solution: Don't enter...

This is one of the better ones. Kodak & Nikon has similar provisions so that they could show the images that won.
Clause 22 would be a stopper for me, though.

JWright wrote in post #5718217
Simple solution: Don't enter...

I'm not but I'm letting everyone know what is happening and have written to the comp organisers (as have others).

If we just sit by and say nothing these competitions gain the tacit consent of photographers. I encourage photographers everywhere to stand up for their rights when confronted by things like this; if we don't these type of conditions will become more prevalent.

Yes it's photo competition with rights grab. Unfortunately about 99% of all photo contests are like this nowadays, including those organized by companies like Canon or Nikon, which officially protect photographers If people would be a bit more careful, they would change their mentality, but since there's bunch of people willing to give away all their rights just to enter contest, where first price is 3 bottles of Coke (I actually know some of my colleagues, who occasionally do this :confused, things won't change. Once organizers would be getting 3 snapshots instead of 3 millions of photos which can sell, they would reconsider their rules. But until then, they can live just fine with such rules.

I have skipped a few contests that involve copyright transfer, and even the National Geographic terms which are perpetual usage seem like a little much. If its an image I think I could get use out of then I wouldn't submit to anything like that although that may change when I realize that no one actually wants to buy any of my images .

The last contest I did enter had terms along the lines of winning photographs will be published in the magazine and online up to 3 times. If you don't win and they don't pay you then they get no use of the image. Thats the sort of thing I like to see.