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Alamy sponsored contest on Photocrowd. Great prizes!


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We’ve teamed up with our friends at Photocrowd to create their largest photo contest ever – and there are some great prizes on offer. You could win kit vouchers, a professional portfolio review, photo books and a bespoke contract with Alamy – where you get 100% commission for a year!


 


Photocrowd’s exciting new contest site lets users vote on each other’s work, so anyone taking part can see in real-time how their images are doing in the contest, and which ones are winning. The expert judge – Alex Bortkiewicz, Director of Photography at Alamy – will be choosing her own separate selection of winning images at the end of the contest, and writing some expert reviews to explain her thinking.


The theme of the contest is ‘Circles’. From birthday cakes to signposts, eyes to berries, we want to see how photographers have captured the ever-present circle with their cameras.


Mike Betts co-founder of Photocrowd said: “This collaboration is really exciting, we love Alamy – the company and the concept – and it’s great to be working with them and their talented network of photographers. We’re aiming to reach 100,000 votes for a 1,000 image contest.”


 


Alex Bortkiewicz, Director of Photography at Alamy and expert judge commented: “Circles inhabit our everyday lives, not least that we live this on this spherical thing called Earth! This theme offers great scope for expressing the circular form and how it reveals itself to us in its many guises.”


 


You can enter the competition here.


 


The Crowd and Expert winners each get:


  • A £100 voucher for photographic equipment of their choice.

  • Incredible exposure for the winning images through Alamy’s social media channels.

  • The winning images featured in Photocrowd’s month-long anniversary exhibition in September 2014, as part of the international Oxford Photography Festival.

  • The offer of a bespoke contract to have their images represented by Alamy. They’ll receive an amazing 100% of all their sales during the first year.

  • The Expert winner also receives a professional portfolio review from Alex Bortkiewicz, Alamy’s Director of Photography, either remotely, or in person as part of a visit to Alamy’s headquarters in the UK.

The Crowd and Expert runners-up each receive a copy of “Wood: Andy Goldsworthy” by Andy Goldsworthy and Terry Friedman.


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Thank you Alamy. Just peeked at Photocrowd and see some inspirational images on there. If I find anything which comes up to the standard on Photocrowd I may try it.

 

Allan

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I may be a bit paranoid, but:
 

  1. by posting your content to the Photocrowd.com website you agree to grant to Photocrowd.com a non-exclusive, transferrable, fully paid, worldwide licence (with the right to sub-licence) to use, distribute, reproduce and publicly display such content in connection with the Photocrowd.com services. This licence will last for the period during which the content is posted on the Photocrowd.com website and will automatically terminate upon the removal of the content from the website.
  2. the licence granted to Photocrowd.com includes the right to use your content fully or partially for promotional reasons and to distribute and redistribute your content to other parties, websites, applications, and other entities, provided such content is attributed to you in accordance with the information submitted to Photocrowd.com by you.
  3. Photocrowd.com agrees not to make direct monetary gain from the sale of your content, or allow a third party to do the same, unless the terms of such a sale have been agreed previously with you, and to include an acceptable share of revenue to be paid to you.
     

I know what it says in number 3, but number 1 and 2 kind of contradict number 3. And this would be exactly the thing I generally avoid: "to distribute and redistribute content to other parties, provided such content is attributed to you in accordance with information submitted".
So basically, if they attribute me properly they can use it wherever they want, provided they make no direct monetary gain. And in my paranoid mind there are all kinds of creative administrative ways to explain why something would not be "direct" monetary gain.

Can someone (maybe from Alamy) shed some light on this?

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I read the T&Cs and my cynical side kicked in too. They can sublicense and make money from ads and give you nothing in return.

 

It doesn't look like the images will be watermarked so they will be wide open for abuse as well.

 

It's another website where you are the product. For the very small chance of winning $100 voucher I don't think I'll bother.

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I used to keep a page on my personal Website for listing photo competitions which I personally reviewed for creative-friendly T&Cs.  I would get e-mails soliciting competition listings which contained T&Cs which I did not agree with and I would not make any bones about it.  A few of the organisers happily changed their T&Cs in order to get a listing.
 
I haven't bothered updating it for maybe a year now as it was just too tiring and long-winded for no returns.
 
I also retained a link on there to the Artists Bill of Rights 'Rights-on List' which is was always worth a view (looks as though there is now only one open competition there - I guess they've got as tired as I did? :mellow: ) if you want to enter any comps.  There may well be entry fees involved (sometimes not), but you can sure that the T&Cs will follow strict guidelines to protect creatives' rights.
 
Good luck whatever competition you choose to enter.  I hope that Alamy's involvement with this brings much exposure here.

 

EDITED to update the 3rd para.

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As many here have pointed out already, I was very disappointed to read the sections of the terms and conditions that relate to what Photocrowd can do with my content. In entering contests on Photocrowd I'm granting a "non-exclusive, transferrable, fully paid, worldwide licence (with the right to sub-licence)" which allows Photocrowd to "to distribute and redistribute your content to other parties, websites, applications, and other entities…"

 

Frankly this sounds like a mess and there is no way I want my images embroiled in a web of sub-licencing or redistribution. In the event of monetary gain I dread to think what they would deem to be "an acceptable share of revenue".

 

Why can't websites like this, whether they are contests or merely showcases, simply let us photographers submit our images and promise to do nothing with them? In the event that they want to use an image for something, just get in touch and ask!

 

When a photography website comes along that offers terms that are in a photographer's interests it will be well worth celebrating. Despite Photocrowd's good intentions their website is not it.

 

I have deleted my account.

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I may be a bit paranoid, but:

 

  1. by posting your content to the Photocrowd.com website you agree to grant to Photocrowd.com a non-exclusive, transferrable, fully paid, worldwide licence (with the right to sub-licence) to use, distribute, reproduce and publicly display such content in connection with the Photocrowd.com services. This licence will last for the period during which the content is posted on the Photocrowd.com website and will automatically terminate upon the removal of the content from the website.
  2. the licence granted to Photocrowd.com includes the right to use your content fully or partially for promotional reasons and to distribute and redistribute your content to other parties, websites, applications, and other entities, provided such content is attributed to you in accordance with the information submitted to Photocrowd.com by you.
  3. Photocrowd.com agrees not to make direct monetary gain from the sale of your content, or allow a third party to do the same, unless the terms of such a sale have been agreed previously with you, and to include an acceptable share of revenue to be paid to you.

     

I know what it says in number 3, but number 1 and 2 kind of contradict number 3. And this would be exactly the thing I generally avoid: "to distribute and redistribute content to other parties, provided such content is attributed to you in accordance with information submitted".

So basically, if they attribute me properly they can use it wherever they want, provided they make no direct monetary gain. And in my paranoid mind there are all kinds of creative administrative ways to explain why something would not be "direct" monetary gain.

 

Can someone (maybe from Alamy) shed some light on this?

 

It seems to me that item 2 essentially rules out exclusive Alamy licensing for an image, assuming a buyer requests it.  Is that correct?

 

Regards

Lionel

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Hi everyone - rest assured we wouldn't have partnered with these guys without being sure they were trustworthy. 

 

Mike Betts (co-founder of Photocrowd) has just published this blog post that will hopefully ease your concerns:

 

http://photocrowd.tumblr.com/post/76418179757/terms-and-conditions

 

Cheers

 

Alamy

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I'm as reticent as any about online contests but based on Alamy's sponsorship and assurances decided to give it a go. I was still too nervous to post my full size A-rated images (ratings subjectively mine), but tested the waters with three images, one of which initially made it into the top 25%. I managed to stay there for about a day but eventually was edged out. I find the top entries for the most part are of excellent technical quality and fit the contest theme well so no complaints on my part. The security of my images remains to be seen but I don't sense they are at great risk.

 

No one has asked for my opinion but I'll mention a few of my observations and thoughts any way. First, I made the time to vote on every submission (it takes a while to vote on 2000 images) and found quite a few excellent submissions. However I also found a surprisingly large number of entries that don't remotely reflect the circle theme and many of poor technical quality as well. I suppose that is to be expected in an open online competition.

 

I also feel variety suffers a bit as there is an inordinate number of spinning carnival rides, bubbles and water drops of all sizes and quantities, light writing entries and many eyes of all sorts. One of the top images -- a nicely done image -- is of stacks of round objects yet the image does not contain a single circle since all the items are viewed edge on. I guess implied circles count?

 

I've rambled on long enough so I'll stop now.

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  • 1 month later...

99.9% of all so-called photo 'competitions' are just scams to get free photographs. They all have that 'small print' somewhere. They offer piddling prizes and get in return, free use of hundreds, if not thousands of images which is the idea in the first place. Alamy says they are trustworthy. They won't steal your camera as well then!

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