At 06:56 PM 8/5/99 -0500, Gary Edwards wrote:
>I?m looking for OM List members? opinions to serve as a sanity check for
>mine.
Not that my opinions are any good for sanity checks, but what the Hell... ;-)
>A very large corporation (100,000+ employees) is conducting its third
>annual photo contest. The stated objective is to obtain images for the
>Corporate intranet image data base. Photographs must have been made on
>employees? time and off company property. The images in this database
>are available for free use within the Corporation, and on request,
>outside the Corporation. Credit for the photographer on usage is
>requested but not required (and, in fact, is seldom given). The
>corporation chooses the images added to the database from ALL images
>submitted, not just winners or finalists. There are only three winners
>in the contest. Those three winners each receive C*n*n cameras with
>consumer grade zoom lenses. Ten finalists will be published and
>credited in a spread in the monthly Corporate newsletter, but absolutely
>no compensation is given to other submitters. Submissions are not
>returned and the Corporation claims use of all submissions for ?an
>unlimited time.? They do not, however, claim exclusive rights.
So far, I'm with you.
>As I see this, the Corporation is conducting this contest to obtain
>uncompensated use of employees? personal work, at very modest overall
>expense. Heck of a deal for them. Certainly, some employees accept this
>in return for the chance at a camera or at publication.
Being of a libertarian bent, I can't see the problem with this. As long as the
Corporation is up front about what it's going to do with the submitted photos,
the employees (whether their work has value or not) are basically agreeing to
give up their time and energy in return for a chance at a modestly-valued prize
and possibly equally-modest fame (however ephemeral). It sounds to me like
*all* the employees (not just "some" of them) accept this "in return for the
chance at a camera or at publication." Those who don't presumably don't enter
the contest. (I wouldn't, but then, that's just me.)
>I believe most
>do not realize that their work has value for which they will receive no
>consideration in return. Although the Corporation does state the rules
>up front, that doesn?t make it right, IMO. Such photo contests are
>common and I have always felt that photo contests conducted this way are
>scams. Honest contest promoters claim rights only to images that they
>pay for, either with a prize or other tangible compensation, also IMO.
Hmmmm. It appears (as I stated above) that the Corp. is being "honest" with
their employees. It doesn't appear that anyone's arm has been twisted, and
everyone who enters willingly signs away their "exclusive rights" to their
images in return for hope of reward (perfectly legal thing to do in common-law
countries).
Is it a cheap way to build up a database of images? Sure. Are they misleading
their potential submitters about this? Doesn't appear so. So the problem
again would be...?
Garth
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