Does Outdoor Photographer Want to Steal Your Work?

Sometimes it’s good to start with a quote. . .

“By submitting an entry, entrant grans the Sponsors and their designees an irrevocable, royalty-free, nonexclusive, worldwide perpetual license to use the entry and his/her name, city and state of residence for credit purposes in Sponsors’ online galleries, without further compensation, notification or permission, unless prohibited by law. In addition, each winner grants to the Sponsors and their designees an irrevocable, royalty-free, nonexclusive, worldwide perpetual license to use and distribute the entry (as submitted, or as cropped by the Sponsors), and his/her name, city and state of residence for credit purposes, in any and all media now or hereafter known, including without limitation in Outdoor Photographer and any Madavor Media magazines for purposes of promotion of this Contest and for publication in Outdoor Photographer’s special contest issue. except as otherwise stated herein, without further compensation, notification or permission, unless prohibited by law.”

The above paragraph is from Outdoor Photographer’s most recent contest announcement. And as is usually the case, details are buried in legalese making it challenging to understand exactly what this means for any photographer who submits images to the contest.

Annalise Kaylor recently wrote a newsletter article for us that discusses just how common practice it is for companies to host “contests” only to retain rights to your images if you enter to win.

So, is this what Outdoor Photographer is doing?

The short answer is both yes and no.

In regard to Outdoor Photographer and their parent company, Madavor Media, this states that any winner of the photography contest can and likely will have their work used in any number of ways to promote the fact that the company ran a photo contest and also in their special contest issue.

This is simple enough. If you win, they will promote your work advertise their contest and showcase your stuff in a special issue.

Over at the Journal of Wildlife Photography, I do something similar. Winners and 20 runner ups all get notified and we then ask if they would like for us to feature their photographs and the story behind them in our special contest issue.

Outdoor Photographer, and Madavor Media, are large companies with millions of subscribers. The Journal of Wildlife Photography only has a few thousand. So, it’s easy enough for us to reach out to people directly and ask this. For a larger company, making a statement like this just let’s us know that it’s far too time consuming for them to deal with such details and so your permission is implied.

The part that is concerning, however, is the matter of “Sponsors.”

These “Sponsors” are big named companies. Cornell University. BenQ. Tamron. BayPhoto. Etc.

The legalese in the contest states that any sponsor of the contest can use your photograph in their galleries for as long as they want.

What is a gallery? Will it be used just for promoting the fact that they sponsored this contest? Or, can these images be used down the road for, say, advertising and marketing of services and products.

Two years from now, can BenQ, for instance, use your photographs to promote their latest and greatest IPS display for photographers?

This is where the terms of these types of contests begin to get a little dicey. While Outdoor Photographer has covered their own bases in this respect, detailing exactly how and what your images may be used for, the language associated with the sponsors of the contest does not go this far.

From a legal perspective, this is likely on purpose. Outdoor Photographer is safeguarding themselves and their sponsors in case your photos are used in association with something other than the contest itself. And, the ambiguity of this protects them in case this happens.

Meanwhile, from a working wildlife photographer’s perspective, this ambiguity smacks of an easy out for companies to use our photography without having the license it from us.

Of all the many ways in which wildlife photography use purchased and used by companies, advertising and marketing is the most expensive for them. This is where we make the most money. It’s not from selling to National Geographic. It’s not from landing cover sales of magazines. It’s from having our work used to generate money for companies in the form of marketing and advertising.

Depending upon specific use of the images, price tags for such lisences can often run into the tens of thousands. And it’s not uncommon for sales to hit the $20K+ mark when it comes to this sort of stuff.

For this reason, I am always exceedingly weary of contest rules that are so ambiguous. The companies in question are multi-million dollar operations. Me, I’m just a guy with a camera and a laptop trying to make a living in this world. And unfortunately, exposure, credits, and photo contests are not accepted by my bank to pay bills.

Is BenQ or Tamron likely to use your photograph to promote and sell their latest wares?

It’s a 50/50 gamble.

Maybe they will. Maybe they won’t.

The devil is in the ambiguity of it all.

These types of practices are all too common these days. Both businesses and photographers themselves have spent the last 20 years working in tandem to drive the value of our art into the ground. And so, the question that each of us must ask ourselves is not so much the matter of whether our images will be used without compensation by these companies as much as it is whether or not we want to continue to support these types of practices?

Occasionally, a grand prize win from one of these contests does in fact translate into a major career boost for the winner. Rarely, except for in the largest of global contests, is this the case, however.

Only you can decide what is the right course of action for you and your business.

Me, I avoid these situations like the plague.