Pop Photo Contest

<p>Have any of you ever entered contests like </p>

<h2><a href="http://readerscontest2010.popphoto.com/">Popular Photography Readers' Photo Contest</a>?</h2>

<p>Browsing through their recent entries, they don't quite measure up to the quality in photo.net's top rated images. $10 per image seems like a high fee for a contest that will have thousands of entries. The chances of winning are small. In general, what kind of contest is worth entering?</p>

<p>None that charge a fee for entering. None that have any kind of rights transfer.</p>

<p>Right. It's a wonderful sort of scam. People who are proud of their photography pay money to have their favorite work judged, with hopes of fame and glory. They grudgingly consent to grant rights, trusting that there's nothing nefarious about the motives of the contest organizers (or simply don't know they're granting usage rights). The contest organizers then pocket all the loot and use all the artwork for financial gain. They pick out a few good, but not great, photos as winners. The next year, people look at the previous winners and think, "Gee, my work is better than that! I could win this contest!" And the scam lives on.</p>

<p>Wow, $10 a photo - that's crazy. It reminds me of the $1 per text message for voting on shows like Big Brother and such - the producers are raking in the money.</p>

<p>I think I'll pop into their forums and comment on it.</p>

<p>That reminds me, there is a new photo.net contest starting. It's a deal at only $5 an image to submit, or get the bonus deal of 10 images submitted for $60!</p>

<p>Please make all checks out to "CASH".</p>

<p>Done. I put it in the Rant/Rave forum - my tag there is Flux101.</p>

<p>..........just to add that the small print is well worth considering....<br>

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I saw one such rights-grab comp recently that had the usual <em>"you give us all rights in perpetuity.....etc etc"</em> and <em>"allow us to sub-license and make derivative works from...etc etc"</em><br>

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.....but also had the ridiculous <em>"...and agree to absolve us from any legal liability arising from our use of your work, and agree to bear any and all legal costs incurred in defending ourselves against any legal action arising from use of your images by any third party to whom we sub-license....etc etc"</em><br>

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What the actual legal status of such outrageous terms are I dont know, but you have to admire the sharks that are coming up with this stuff for their sheer cheek!<br>

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<p>It's not entirely surprising to see them and some other photo mags stoop this low. I made the mistake of signing up for a free 6-month trial through some silly "free download offer" for compression software, and as result of flipping through it once a month I now think of Pop Photo as a collection of advertisements that would like to charge you money just for reading them. Plus canceling my "trial subscription" turned out to be a bit too much of a hassle, I had to say "No" about 30 times to a computerized phone answering system before it really let me off the hook.</p>