Nick Miners Photography

Have you ever entered a photo com­pet­i­tion? When sub­mit­ting a photo for one, have you ever wondered what’s in it for the pro­moter? You might be sur­prised at how most photo com­pet­i­tions are just a way for pub­lish­ers to obtain cheap or even free stock pho­to­graphy without most people real­ising how their pho­to­graphs will be used. Here are some samples from terms and con­di­tions of photo com­pet­i­tions I’ve seen recently:

“By enter­ing the com­pet­i­tion all entrants grant to the BBC the right to pub­lish and exhibit their pho­to­graphs on tele­vi­sion and on the BBC’s web­site. Entrants whose pho­to­graphs are one of the Final­ists … grant to the BBC (includ­ing BBC World­wide and other pub­lish­ers author­ised by the BBC) the fur­ther rights to pub­lish and exhibit their pho­to­graphs in print, on their respect­ive web­sites or in any other media. No fees will be pay­able for any of the above uses.“
– BBC Coun­try­file Cal­en­dar com­pet­i­tion 2009

“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. “
– Pho­tos on Sunday, the monthly pho­to­graphy com­pet­i­tion from The Sunday Tele­graph, May 2009

“Entrants will retain copy­right in their sub­mit­ted entries, how­ever, by enter­ing, all entrants licence TNL a world­wide royalty-​​free per­petual licence to edit, pub­lish and use each entry in any and all media (includ­ing print and online) for pub­li­city and news pur­poses. This use includes any use in event exhib­i­tions where TNL exhib­its Cit­izen Trav­el­ler for pro­mo­tional activ­ity. “
– Times Travel Photo Com­pet­i­tion, Janu­ary 2010

Notice a theme? By dangling prizes in front of entrants, these estab­lished and respec­ted news organ­isa­tions are basic­ally hoover­ing up an almost end­less sup­ply of stock pho­to­graphy, in most cases without the pho­to­graph­ers even know­ing. As the prizes are often provided by a spon­sor, the pro­moters can be pay­ing next to noth­ing for the privilege.

If you are ser­i­ous about want­ing to make money from your pho­to­graphy, you may think that com­pet­i­tions such as these are a good place to start, as the win­ner will of course receive free pub­li­city. How­ever I would strongly cau­tion against this approach; if a photo is good enough to win such a com­pet­i­tion then it’s good enough to be sold through a stock lib­rary agency, who will charge (and hence pay you) far more than the value of some of these prizes for a per­petual, royalty-​​free licence to use that image.

There’s noth­ing wrong with want­ing to get your images out there and seen, but that is of course what sites like flickr are for — it costs you next to noth­ing, your rights as the con­tent author are pre­served (des­pite occa­sional breaches which usu­ally get much pub­li­city and hence are resolved rel­at­ively quickly) and you have a world­wide audi­ence. Unless the T&Cs are clear and expli­cit about not recyc­ling your pho­to­graphs, leave the com­pet­i­tions to the cas­ual snap­pers who are in it just for the thrill of get­ting their pic­tures in print, and let your pho­to­graphs earn the rev­enue they deserve.

UPDATE: It’s just been poin­ted out to me on Twit­ter that some pho­to­graphy courses are guilty of sim­ilar beha­viour. Have a look at the T&Cs for the Shoot Exper­i­ence photo work­shops:

When you enter a Shoot Exper­i­ence Com­pet­i­tion or Event, you agree to … grant to Shoot Exper­i­ence and its part­ners (for that Event/​Competition) the non-​​exclusive, irre­voc­able, world­wide right and licence to use your Entry solely and exclus­ively for pub­li­city and mar­ket­ing pur­poses and in all media in rela­tion to mar­ket­ing future Com­pet­i­tions and/​or Events for a 5 year period.

Thanks to Gareth Bourne for the update.

The Guard­ian has a report of the BBC using a pho­to­graph they found on flickr for com­mer­cial pur­poses, in con­tra­ven­tion of the Cre­at­ive Com­mons terms under which it was pub­lished. Given that it was only pure conin­cid­ence that the pho­to­grapher noticed this par­tic­u­lar breach, it makes you won­der how often this sort of thing hap­pens. Flickr is all well and good as a ready-​​made gal­lery site, but if you use it to store full res­ol­u­tion cop­ies of your pho­to­graphs, then no mat­ter how restrict­ive a licence you apply to them, it would be very dif­fi­cult to pre­vent unscru­pu­lous or, to give the BBC the bene­fit of the doubt, care­less use of the pho­to­graphs for pur­poses spe­cific­ally excluded by the CC or copy­right terms, unless you make sure that you only allow friends and/​or fam­ily to down­load the originals.