Anger as Nikon sponsors “rights-grabbing competition”

Nikon is sponsoring the Opodo travel photography competition, whose terms and conditions clearly state that every entrant loses their rights to the images that they submit. Which means that Opodo is free to profit from every single image submitted to the competition (e.g. by selling them to other companies, or using them in advertisements), without paying any of the photographers any money whatsoever.

The terms and conditions for the competition are actually pretty difficult to find. In fact I can’t actually find them myself. The average person isn’t going to be able to find them easily even if they bothered to look – most people would be uploading images without realising that they’re giving up their rights to them. Luckily, the T & C’s can be found here.

The terms of the competition provide Opodo with an instant royalty-free photographic library, allowing it to use every photograph submitted to the competition forever without paying the entrant. The term ‘transferable’ would also allow it to sell its licenses to other companies. The value to Opodo of having such an asset could be estimated in the millions of pounds, making the eleven-month competition immensely profitable. – EPUK

Read the full article, plus comments from plenty of Nikon users, here.

Lostinbabylon says: Always read the terms and conditions before you enter a photo comp. Be sure that it’s a genuine photo comp and not just a scam that enables a company to get their hands on shitloads of free photos for their own profiteering purposes…