Monday, January 28, 2008

No Confidence Vote for the PDN/NGS Contest

I can't imagine that PDN, and the NGS would allow a contest that includes a blatant rights grab, but our friends over at PhotoAttorney brought to our attention this egregious contest requirement for PDN's The Great Outdoors Rights Grab Photo Contest:

Entries may be published by Sponsors and/or their designees, licensees or affiliates (the "Authorized Parties") in magazines, on websites, or in any other medium, at Authorized Parties' discretion. By participating, all entrants grant a license in the Entries to the Authorized Parties, and acknowledge that any Authorized Party may use the entries and a name credit in any media now or hereafter known, without restriction, including commercially using the entries to the fullest extent possible worldwide in perpetuity. Authorized Parties will not be required to pay any additional consideration or seek any additional approval in connection with such use.
Come on folks, what gives? PDN is such a supporter of photographers rights, and well, NGS, while certainly not interested in compensating photographers for re-use (a la Fred Ward v. NGS) aleast celebrates photography in their publications, so, I ask again - WHAT GIVES?
(Continued after the Jump)
I can only imagine that that both of them hired some contest competition company to manage/run their contest, and no one bothered (except Carolyn!) to read the small print.

Let's let PDN have a moment to re-do their rules to be more friendly. Certainly Microsoft did when called on the carpet (5/9/0 7 Microsoft's Oversight Correction), and others have returned to a position of respect for photographers rights.

So, let's see it PDN/NGS - fix the rules, and tell us how this happened in the first place. We have placed our trust in you in the past, please make this right.


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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This particular instance of this abuse really surprises me, but I've seen this tactic approached time and time again with other contests. Its really an alarming trend.

Anonymous said...

I saw this on the PDN forum where I posted a comment at the PDN forum as well as EP's forum. I wrote an email to both the Editor & VP publisher.

VP GROUP PUBLISHER, Lauren Wendle, lwendle@pdnonline.com

EDITOR, Holly Stuart Hughes, hhughes@pdnonline.com

I encourage all to do the same.

It's really amazing that at rade pub which is SUPPOSED to have it's readers interests in mind would be stupid enough to do this. Time to let the subscription lapse maybe.

Anonymous said...

I still don't see the clause that Carolyn was talking about in her blog that lets them sub-license to a 3rd party. ...then again, I'm not the lawyer, so maybe I just don't see it because I'm not reading like one.

AdvRdr said...

Scary!

... including commercially using the entries to the fullest extent possible worldwide in perpetuit

Anonymous said...

Carolyn's blog has some good news here. Apparently they got the message & revised the rules. Check her blog.

Anonymous said...

I had been sitting on a post related to this topic for sometime. I think you'll find it of interest particularly since this problem is not just about contests and includes social media sites like FaceBook.

How The Rights To Your Photos Are Being Hijacked Through Photo Contests & Social Media

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