Photo Competitions Are Still Doing This. Photographers Are Still Falling For It.

So I got an email this morning from my local newspaper - the South Coast Register - and they’re promoting some regional electricity company who are running a photo competition. It looked to have some pretty decent prizes on offer, so I thought I’d look at the brief and see if it was something I’d let my fellow local ‘togs know about.

I actually really like the brief for this one - ‘Capture the Energy’ gives you the room to explore all sorts of things that might evoke the idea of energy - and judging from some of the photos that had been submitted, it seemed like a nice broad selection of shots. It’s also a relatively local competition restricted to people living in the ACT or south-east NSW here in Australia - which improves the odds slightly.

But while competitions like this are obviously just advertising for companies, that is not their sole purpose - often they are a brilliantly cheap way for companies to secure a wide range of photographs for them to use in any way, shape or form they desire. So, as I do with any photo competition, I always read the terms and conditions to see how big a ‘grab’ the company is making.

After perusing the T&Cs I was frustrated, but not surprised, to discover just what photographers are giving away by entering this competition.

The licence you grant this business is both broad and permanent. Clause 31 gives ActewAGL (and their licensees) a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use, edit, adapt, and publish your photo across any media (advertising, print, outdoor, social) with no payment required and no further approval needed. That’s pretty bad, but when you see that clause 17 also says that every single submission (not just the winners) could feature in their campaigns, you’re effectively handing them free use of your photo forever, win or lose. I can sort of understand giving up some rights if you’d won - but every loser in this competition walks away with nothing except a permanent, royalty-free contribution to an electricity company's marketing library.

The organisers didn’t want to restrict their rights-grab in any way and so the terms also permit them to crop, alter, or use your photo without attribution.You’re effectively giving then a perpetual free licence to your work and waiving all moral rights for a shot at electricity bill credits and a camera kit.

Whenever I counsel against entering these sorts of competitions for the reasons I’ve listed above, I often get apologists who say that they’re not pitched at the kind of photographer who has ever given a nano-second’s thought to their rights when it comes to photography - like that makes it okay. They say that it’s pitched at regular folks who might have a couple of nice shots on their smartphone - and that is true - but equally there will be a large number of hobbyist photographers tempted by the prizes.

It doesn’t really matter whether or not the entrants to this competition are amateur, serious hobbyist or even professional - the organisers are taking the piss - securing permanent rights to the use of a large number of photographs for the cost of a domain name, a small website and an entry-level mirrorless camera.

So by all means enter if you live in the named region - just know that you're not competing for prizes; you're doing unpaid commercial photography for an energy company, and the entry fee is your rights.