Entering Photo Contests - Beware

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Summary: Read the fine print.
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When entering contests for "exposure" many photographers may unknowingly waive their rights to the photos that they enter, whether the photos win or not. This topic briefly surfaced in another thread here, but I would like to highlight this disturbing trend by drawing your attention to this blog post. It's surprising how some of the big names (National Geographic to name one) are getting in on this.

Many of the local contests also employ this tactic. One example is a calendar contest. Any photo you enter becomes the property of the company, whether it makes the calendar pages or not. When a photo becomes the property of a company, that company can use your photograph for whatever purpose they'd like to without any compensation or recognition to the original creator of the work (read: you).

Hmmmm. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!!

They're out to get you everywhere. I even debated signing on to Soonet because of their contract. Viacom is allowed to use any image posted. It's not full ownership, but still scary. As if one of the biggest communication companies in the world can't afford a stock photograph.

It's a mine field out there.

Well, my feeling is that if you post a photograph on the net, it may be stolen. It is very difficult and expensive to enforce copyright laws. Take a look at what happened in the following thread:

Unauthorized Picture Use by NY Times, NBC, Time Warner

It's not just the reading of the fine print in contest rules and user agreements that we have to worry about. Just having our images out there, published on the web and available for anyone to download, use and manipulate is dangerous. I'm seriously thinking of removing my photographs that I really care about from the internet and perhaps replacing them with a version that includes some sort of watermark. The problem is, I can't remember where they all are.

I made a big stink when Viacom changed their EUL, even going so far as deleting all the images, and phoning them direct. They informed me that they would never use my photos in any shape, way, or form. Irrespective, their EUL does allow them to do so if I post a photo on their web site.

Well today, two of my photographs that I posted in flickr just appeared in Absolute Michigan blog without permission. To the author's credit, he did inform me that he used my photographs in the article (after the fact) and he did give me credit for them.

Here's the link:
http://www.absolutemichigan.com/dig/michigan/michigan-history-the-tri-motor-conquers-the-south-pole/

Besides photography, I'm an automobile enthusiast with a particular fascination with the Ford Motor Company and its history. So as the article pertains to something that I'm interested in, I'm not going to make a really big deal about the use of my photographs. If the author would have asked for permission before publishing the article, I would have gladly allowed the use of my photographs. I'm now thinking of changing the license of my Ford/Automobile related photographs to a Creative Commons license to avoid this problem in the future.

This is typical of what one may find if you post your photos online. It is a free-for-all - there is no consideration of copyrights at all. I have seen photographs taken from flickr and used in things like blogs and even newspaper articles without permission and without credit. And in some cases, the credit for the photo was given to someone other than the photographer.

And here's a long story about someone's battle with a company that used his photos out of copyright, and how far that company went to get them for free. In the end, the plaintiff won.. but after a 10 year battle he managed to get only $20K. Probably not enough to cover his court costs.

http://www.cgstock.com/essays/vilana

I don't want to sound like an anti-digital zealot but if ever there is a question about the ownership of a photograph, having the physical negative of the image in question will go along way. Digital watermarking and digital signing have not worked too well so far.

BTW, I know that the person who used my images in the above blog did so innocently. Many people assume that using a photograph is like quoting a passage from a written piece. It is not. There is a "fair use" law in the United States that covers this sort of thing. In Canada, there is a section of the Copyright Act concerning "fair dealing" that s similar to the "Fair Use Law" of the US. However, the "fair dealing" bit is often ignored and hardly enforced.

There are very respected organizations that openly defy fair dealing and sometimes, as stupid as this may sound, must negotiate with the government for special permission to break the copyright law. For example, if I were to copy a newspaper article and distribute it in my classroom for study - I am infringing on copyright according to the Fair Dealing part of the Copyright Act if I do not get permission from the copyright holder first (surprisingly - I'm covered by Fair Use if I was in the US). Fortunately for me, the Association of Colleges and Universities of Canada (AUCC) negotiated with the Federal Government an agreement (CANCOPY) to give educators and students some freedoms to break the copyright act for educational uses... And yes, I do think that the whole thing is nuts.

When it comes to copyrights, it usually comes down to ethics. Just finished reading "On Being a Photographer" by Bill Jay and David Hurns/Magnum for the fourth or fifth time (yes, it is that good) and in it there is a chapter on the future of photography. The main concern that David Hurns has about this new digital age is that of morality and integrity. Whether one calls for tougher enforcement of copyright laws as a solution or if one thinks a more open, honour-based approach is needed, we much first make people aware of the problem before exploring the various solutions. The fact is that most people are completely ignorant of these issues and even what might happen to their very own photographs should they submit them to a contest, or publish them in a forum, etc. Unfortunately, there are some greedy people out there to take advantage of this. The fact that we are discussing this here is very good.

This definitely is a touchy subject.

Flickr's ToS allows them to use your photos as well (any major company where you share anything has this tied in -- nobody reads the fine print anywhere). I was hesitant to even post anything on there but the networking aspect outweighed the possible theft aspect. I was also contemplating watermarking my images when I started my photoblog but if somebody wants to steal your work they'll steal your work, it's that simple. I'm not famous/big/popular enough to have my work stolen (I think) and if it is I wouldn't be able to find it.

When I post my band stuff I usually put my name at the bottom and the bands are usually cool with that and mention me when they post the shots. I have however had bands not even say anything to me then I see them using the images in their MySpace page etc. I've also had one person crop the bottom of the photo off where my name was, I had it on a dark digital matte with my name at the bottom and they left the dark matte on the top/sides but cropped the bottom off, it was quite obvious and annoyed the crap out of me. It's things like that which makes me not want to shoot them for their benefit.

But let's switch gears to a very popular photographer on the web and Flickr named Rebekka (and I won't even try the last name). She's had her shots stolen numerous times now off of Flickr, one time the prints were being sold at a store and the latest someone was posting all of her shots on iStockPhoto and being paid the royalties.

You can check her flickr site out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebba
Here iStockPhoto story here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebba/2243426607/ (featuring a screen cap of her stolen images on iStockPhoto -- her images are watermarked too)
And her wikipedia entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebekka_Gu%C3%B0leifsd%C3%B3ttir

There is a realism to photographs that often causes the subjects to feel that they own the rights to the photograph. I'm not surprised that a one of your subjects would crop your name out of the image as if he/she owned it. We must never forget that it is the photographer that is the owner, after all, the photographer is the one who 'makes' the image. The subject can only be the copyright holders if the photographer relinquishes his/her copyright to them.

If Korda (aka Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez) had received royalties for every time his iconic image of Che Guevara has been and continues to be used, he would have been a gazillionaire.