US Embassy Guyana Revises Photo Contest Rules After IPR Flak

We have previously posted here about US Embassy Guyana's photo contest via Facebook/Flickr which generated some IPR controversy.  The embassy has now revised its photo contest rules: 

After reviewing opinions expressed by members of various on-line communities and in the press that included a lively discussion on intellectual property rights, the United States Embassy in Guyana has revised the photo contest rules to be as flexible as possible within legal norms for such contests. The U.S. Embassy is pleased to announce that it will use the Democracy Video Challenge rules for this and other similar contests. Our new rules are posted at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Georgetown-Guyana/US-Embassy-Guyana-Public-Affairs/140708899279090?v=app_2373072738&ref=sgm#!/topic.php?uid=140708899279090&topic=221

Below is the relevant portion revised:

Contestants retain ownership of their photos. However, by submitting a photo to the Contest, Contestants grant Contest Sponsors, participating organizations, and Platform Partner, with proper attribution through whatever means they deem appropriate, a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sub-licensable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, and/or display the Photo Submission, in any media formats and through any media channels in perpetuity in connection with the activities and operations of the Contest.

Read the entire contest rules here.


The rules still cover a large swath.  Contestants retains ownership of their photos, but their submission even if not judged winners in this contest could still be used without any compensation from the looks of it.  Three adult awards and three children awards -- six in total, costing possibly less than a thousand dollars altogether:

The adult awards will be: first place winner will receive an underwater digital camera, the second place winner will receive a Flipcam camera, and the third place winner will receive a photography book. Children awards will be: first place winner will receive a digital camera, second place will receive a iPod mini, and the third place winner will receive a photography book. Honorable Mention Winners in both categories will receive photography books.

But if you have some fifty contestants who submit the maximum allowed of 5 photos under the rules of the contest, that's still 250 photographs in a bucket to select from for "worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sub-licensable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, and/or display." Not a bad ROI, but still does not look good.  

Frankly, we still cannot understand why the contest organizers won't use for promotion just the six winning photos in this contest and leave the non-winning photos alone.  Wouldn't that make more sense and less uhm, sorry, we'll use the word again -- tacky?