It has nothing to do with whether I’m doing well or not. If the deal isn’t good, you have to be prepared to walk away. If not, the problems down the road can be much worse than the immediate issue of turning down the work.

After taxes on $50,000 you might get to Brooklyn. And while you find it hard to believe, many photographers would be smart enough to walk away from a bad deal. As an agent I turned down jobs worth much more.

Like I tried to outline in my comments, it isn’t for everyone but one size has never fit all nor should it in my opinion. However, it is still my opinion that this contest is a good fit for many talented individuals.

Thank you all for the interesting discussions taking place about the Name Your Dream Assignment contest. Bruce contacted us and we wanted to respond to a number of the questions and thoughts that have been raised here.

One of the first things we want to make clear is that this contest was not developed with only the professional photographer in mind. Actually, our goal was that anyone with a dream and a camera could participate in this contest and potentially win. That is why we did not allow contestants to show their portfolios. Our goal was to focus on the dream assignment itself, the creativity, originality and not how impressive someone’s resume and portfolio was. We wanted the merits of the dream assignment itself to be the deciding factor and not who necessarily the photographer was. Now that the public voting period is over, each one of the finalists will be able to share with our expert panel of judges their portfolios and past work.

In regard to the questions on the contest rules and terms, we clearly state that the photos taken by the winner of the contest is owned by them and only them. Our terms asks the winner of the contest to post his or her photos taken on their dream assignment trip, to the Dream Assignment blog. The winner will also be posting their writings and videos so they can share their dream assignment adventure with the rest of the community. Which was our main goal for this contest. In four weeks, we have had more than 100,000 people register on our Web site with countless discussions and thoughts being shared about individuals dream assignments. Bottom line is that when the winner’s dream assignment is over, he or she will own every photo they took on their dream assignment and may do what they would like with them.

Unfortunately, when you do something like this, we are never going to be able to please everyone. We wish we could, but that generally is not in the cards. One of the areas we have been putting a lot of time and effort is to really listen to what people have to say about the contest. What things we did well as well as not so well. Our goal is to take all this great feedback and hopefully we will be that much better the next time around.

We hope we were able to address some of the questions/issues raised here. We really want to thank everyone for their participation, passion and great feedback. It is all greatly appreciated. Thanks again!

These contests are building huge image libraries and the practice is devaluing photography; it is also damaging the profession generally as a means of making a living. By the way, amongst the worst offenders are government departments and other publicly funded bodies such as city councils.

Everyone who enters this contest gives up all the intellectual property contained within their submission for ever. How can anyone think that giving up their rights is a smart thing to do?

It is bad business practice to give away the only thing that will earn you money in the creative world. If for whatever reason you are not selling your work do not think that giving up all your rights is going to improve your situation! You never see Adobe, Canon, Getty etc giving away their rights, they defend them to the death and you should do the same.

Think about it, what other business gives product away for nothing (effectively for ever) thinking that it will improve their business? Your creativity is your product, go and SELL it!

I see some people are criticising entry fees. Fees are not necessarily bad. The contests that allow free entry are mostly the type of contest that strips rights from entrants; they are happy to bear the cost of organising the contest because they are getting such an immensely valuable return for their effort.

Sometimes the contests that require an entry fee are perfectly honourable, seeking limited rights for one or two years so that they can promote the contest and the photographer. Often such contests are the most prestigious. There is nothing wrong with a contest just because it requires an entry fee, look at the terms as a whole to see what rights they want before making a judgement.

I must declare my interests at this point, I belong to the organisation that wrote the Bill of Rights and this bill sets out guidelines for contest organisers to follow; by doing so they will be respecting photographers rights.

You can read it here -

http://www.pro-imaging.org/content/view/177/156/

- and if you follow the links you will see the list of worldwide organisations that have declared their support for the Bill of Rights. That list of supporters happens to include what is arguably the most prestigious photo contest in the world. Have a look at the material there as Debra has already said. When you’ve done that I urge all those who think that giving their rights away is good for the photography profession to seriously rethink the implications of their opinion.

I accept that the winner of the ‘Dream Assignment’ contest might do well financially and may even be ‘noticed’, but think about the cost. All the entrants will have lost the rights to their submissions and the organisations that run such contests only continue to do so because some people are naive and others will do absolutely anything simply to be ‘noticed’.

Bruce, if you know the contest organizers and are certain of their intentions, you should leverage your relationship to ask that they publish an announcement apologizing to the photography community for their contest terms, and indicating that despite those terms, they promise not to use any winning entry for any purpose other than to promote the contest, and that they agree that no limitations will be placed on any photographer on the use of his or her work for any other purpose, and that they will not use any non-winning entry for any purpose.

If they agree,your take on their intentions is confirmed. If they disagree, then your take is incorrect. While it is too late to change the contest terms, it is never too late for them to announce that they will do the right thing. It is that simple.

One such truth:
Many companies routinely use photo contests to obtain rights to photographs for their marketing purposes, in lieu of licensing from photographers or stock agencies.

Another such truth:
Photo contest operators often offer contest sponsors the right to exploit the photographs entered in the contests, in exchange for sponsorship dollars.

Goes something like this:

“Hey boss, the photography for our ad campaigns this year will cost us at least $150k. But I have an idea. Let’s announce a photo contest with $50,000 in prizes. The rules can state that we will receive unlimited rights to use all photographs submitted as entries. We’ll get thousands of photographs submitted, and for our $50k investment plus $25k in marketing, we’ll end up with a huge library of images to use in our ads and on our site, in our brochures and other direct mail, etc.. And it will be risk free, because each entrant will agree to hold us harmless from any liability. There is no better way to get thousands of photographers to work on spec. And, we’ll save $75k in the process. Now, how about that raise?”

OR, it can also go something like this:

“Hey sponsor, if you sponsor our photo contest, we’ll give you the right to use any of the entries for unlimited advertising of your brand, products and services. For you investment of $25k in sponsorship, you’ll get your own stock library!”

Both of the above are common scenarios.

Even where a contest is run by a reputable company that has no intention of taking advantage of photographers, there is no justification for terms that allow unlimited usage, terms that allow usage beyond the context of the contest, terms that place liability on the photographer, terms that limit the photographer’s right to use his/her photographs in any way.

Contest terms should allow the contest operator to use the photographs for display of the winning entries only, and also to promote the contest. That is it. There should be no rights related to entries that do not win. The rules should state that any usage beyond the scope of the contest itself will require a license from the photographer, and payment of an additional fee.

Companies should be encouraged to use contests to celebrate the art and craft of photography. Companies should be discouraged from using contest to obtain spec photography or rights to existing photography, even if the contest celebrates the art and craft of photography.

Ever seen a squirrel transfixed by a shiny object? I’ve observed that a photographer’s intelligence, sense of self worth, and propensity to succeed in business is directly proportional to his/her tendency to enter contests that require an unecessary transfer of rights.

That shiny object — watch out — it just might be a razor blade.

Ed

I’m very comfortable with my approach to anything that hurts photographers.

Debra – it’s always been this way. Every since I attended my first ASMP meeting in 1980. Everyone wants one thing but will settle for what they can get if it benefits their career. It’s not ideal but it’s real world. I choose to deal in the real world and support those talented passionate photographers any way I can.

This is completely non-analogous. The photographer would be an employee and would receive whatever benefits they were entitled to as an employee. The would also be better off financially then they would be should they win this contest.

We are never going to agree on this and since I’ve stated my feelings toward this competition, there’s nothing else for me to say. I find the support of this disheartening and at times sickening. I must ask myself the following: Why should I care more about your rights than you do? I can take my skill set to any industry and earn a living. What are photographers going to do?

To reiterate – the contest organizers knew exactly with whom they were dealing. They are probably laughing their asses off. Tell me Bruce, how do you encourage photographers to manage their copyrights and pay attention when signing contracts and in the same breath, promote this contest? Oh and about that furthering your career thing – it’s going to be difficult when they don’t have the right to use and promote their own imagery.

The sad part about this is that these terms did not have to exist. Photographers could have protested and forced the organizers to revise them. But I guess that would mean that photographers interested in entering would actually
have had to read the terms and then take action.

There is a wonderful organization in the UK that acts as a watchdog organization for competitions. They have lists of acceptable and non-acceptable competitions. For anyone interested visit: http://pro-imaging.org/ and click on campaigns. Needless to say, they are now aware of this competition.

From the contest website: “Once again, we want to thank everyone for their creative ideas …” HA! I bet they do. There might actually be a few good images in that revenue-generating library they’ll put together. It just keeps getting better – has anyone read the Personal Services Agreement?

This is the best part though “The Top 20 finalists will be required to show some proof that they know how to take a picture,…” What can one say besides WOW!

Yes. They’ve now got themselves a huge database of people who seemingly don’t give a t*ss about their copyright to sell yet more “dreams*” to ad infinitum – doh!

* $50 an entry, deadline unexpectedly lengthened due to demand (lack of enough entry fees), $xxx to get the “book” and a seat at the lavish awards.

Goddam. I wish I’d thought of it. Licence to print money.

If this assignment helps them, I release them of any guilt about whether it may harm my business (as if). I encourage every photographer to manage their copyrights and pay attention to what they are signing when they sigh a contract. In other words, never shoot a job that doesn’t further your career.