Reassurance on the one hand, but worrying text in the rules, Lowepro can't have it both ways, can they?
When we originally broke this story we didn't expect it to rumble on for weeks. You may recall the controversy caused by the rules for Lowepro's 'My Favorite Things' photography competition that appeared to make very large claims on any photos entered, whether they won or not. In response to DPNow asking for clarification of the rules we had a positive sounding response from Lowerpro, but while the company sought to reassure photographers, and modify the rules, the soothing words were not matched by the actual changes to the rules. This was covered in my blog last week. Lowepro has now reacted to that blog entry and issued this statement:
"Throughout its more than 40 years serving photographers and the photo industry, Lowepro has always been keenly aware of the concerns of photographers, so the issues raised by your readers are important to the company. In developing the rules for this contest, Lowepro reviewed the industry standards for contest terms and conditions and paid particular attention to ensuring that photographers were served fairly. At the same time, we need to ensure that there’s equitable value for us pending winner selection. As a show of support and good will, we took another look and made additional concessions based on feedback from the community.
"Rather than address the terms line-by-line, Lowepro would encourage contest participants to take the time to read the contest rules in their entirety, and in the appropriate context, in order to better understand how their images are being protected. The contest rules do plainly spell out that photographers will retain all copyrights and full ownership of their images and that Lowepro will seek written approval from the photographer before utilizing the images beyond contest-related promotion and publicity.
We hope your community embraces the My Favorite Things contest, but we understand that each photographer needs to balance the chance of winning with the terms and conditions and decide if its right for them."
You can inspect the competition terms and conditions for yourself at the Lowepro website. In fact we urge you to do just that.
While I could never imagine Lowepro risking the wrath of photographers by actually abusing their work in a rights-grab, the problem is that the words in the competition rules appear to enable Lowepro, and their partners, to do just that. On top of that entrants are asked to restrict their personal use of the images as well. And once again, it's not a restriction solely aimed at winning and runners up entries, but ALL entries.
So have a look at the rules, let us know what you think of them and we'll pass your comments on to Lowepro.
Lowepro is not alone in using heavy legalese in their competition rules. If you have encountered similarly restrictive photographic competition rules, again let us know and we'll investigate further.
Send your feedback to [email protected], or post a response to this story on the DPNow forum (free registration required).
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