Our provincial government is running an interesting summer long photo contest. The idea is simple. Submit your best Island photo for a chance to win $2000 worth of prizes. Sounds kind of cool but a closer look at the fine print is cause for a few important questions. It's very possible that this is just lawyer talk to help protect them (Facebook recently went through this problem) but the condition agreement reads as follows:
With regard to any photograph submitted to this contest, the entrant, or the owner of copyright in the photograph, retains copyright. By uploading or submitting any photograph to this contest, the entrant grants (or warrant that the owner of such materials expressly grants) Tourism PEI a royalty-free, world-wide, perpetual, non-exclusive license to display, distribute, reproduce, and create derivative works of the entries, in whole or in part, in any media now existing or subsequently developed, for any Tourism PEI purpose, including, but not limited to advertising and promotional materials, its website, exhibition, and commercial products, including but not limited to Tourism PEI publications. Tourism PEI will not be required to pay any additional consideration or seek any additional approval in connection with such uses. Winning entrants are required to sign a release containing the above conditions
It's very typical for a contest to be designed to benefit the organization and not those participating by coating it with a nice looking prize. They'll receive a large number of photos submitted for a small $2000 fee when they would normally need to pay someone like John Sylvester thousands or dollars per photo.
With the odd exception, I personally don't participate in contests. They feel like a scam to me. Instead of paying a company to professionally design or take a photo of something, they offer a relatively small prize and have thousands, if not tens of thousands of options to pick from. In this specific case, also owning the rights to all of it.
I'm not trying to be critical, but it is what it is.