I have received several post cards and emails about this competition. I just got a prospectus in the mail. If you read the information on the back, it looks to me like you are signing over ALL rights to reproduction of the work. Not just for advertising like most show, but any reproduction and the use of your name... and this is just for entering the show, not for the winners. So with the entries, the have a built in library of images to make prints and any other item they choose. They say they will give the artist 10% royalty on limited edition items, but flat rates on things like posters and note cards. For posters and note cards they could sell millions of, you get $50-$100 flat rate.
Scary world out there for artists! Always read the fine print, and never, ever give away your copyright!
So many of us are in a hurry, forgetting to read the fine print.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post as it is a timely reminder that I read the fine print properly myself. :)
I SOOooo agree with you about keeping your copyrights. Contests like this have been around for years. Magazines that want your craft ideas and recipes. People sometimes don't realize that winning means losing. Never give away your copyright. The exposure isn't worth it.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone is thinking of entering the American Artist Cover Competition or their 70th Anniversary Competition they better read the fine print. Under the rules it states: "As consideration for being permitted to enter the contest and win a prize, you hereby grant to American Artist, it's affiliates and subsideraries and their successors and assigns an unlimited, unrestricted, royalty-free license to use your name, image, and artwork in any print, electronic or other medium now existing or developed in the future including, but not limited to, use on the www.myamericanartist.com website, without restricton as to the frequency of duration of usage.
ReplyDeleteUNBELIEVABLE! and it is printed in extremely small print on the bottom of the entry form. It could almost go unnoticed.