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I'm delighted to be a life member of English Heritage. They're a great organisation. It was they, I believe, who were instrumental in making the Johnny Haynes stand a listed building, as well as Craven Cottage. It's hard to feel bad about English Heritage, but something has just come to light which merits a significant moan, at the very least. It concerns a photography competition, just announced in the current edition of their magazine. Here's the page about the competition:
It's not a bad prize—a camera worth £600—and it looks a fun competition, taking a picture that sums up a perfect day out. No problem with any of that. My moan is about copyright. Copyright is the ownership of a photograph (or a painting or a piece of writing or any created work). Copyright belongs to the creator of the work, unless it is specifically transferred. And since copyright is the key to permission to use and reproduce the work, it is by definition valuable. It is usually given up only after serious consideration—usually a lot of money! For example, my photographs are my copyright, and, like any other photographer, I would only transfer copyright for a considerable sum—and that's never happened with individual images! Even if someone else owns a print of a photograph, that does not mean that they own the copyright in the picture. Now, on the English Heritage photo competition page there is only one mention of copyright. It's not in the main text. It's hidden away right in the middle of the terms and conditions printed in the bottom left corner of the page (and printed in very tiny type). I wonder why. And what do these terms and conditions say about the photograph you send in? Just this: The entries become copyright of English Heritage. You have to read through many of those terms and conditions before you get to that sentence. You're hardly like to, but of course in the terms and conditions is the statement that entry to the competition implies acceptance of the terms and conditions. This means that every photograph submitted to the competition becomes the property of English Heritage. Not just the winning photograph, but every picture. You enter the competition and you lose copyright in the picture you've sent in. English Heritage is not the first big organisation to use such a competition to apparently get its hand on thousands of photographs which it can then use in any way it wants without any recompense to the photographers. The photographic press continually warns of such practices. So the question is, is the tiny chance of winning a camera enough recompense for giving up copyright in your best photograph. By sending the picture in you lose the picture absolutely. Not just the print, but copyright in the picture. I wish organisations like English Heritage would be transparent about this. If they said that they were a worthwhile organisation, always doing good works, always strapped for cash, and that they were using the competition to build up a database of photographs for publicity purposes, at least you would know what the deal was. Or they could say that the winning entry becomes their copyright (perfectly reasonable) and any other entry may be used once or twice for publicity purposes with the photographer duly acknowledged. But they offer no such concessions. They appear to hide the real purpose in the middle of tiny, almost unreadable terms and conditions. Not acceptable, I think. Do you agree? |
