Rights Grabbing

What is it?

This is a phrase much bandied about with regard to photography competitions. Many people have an approximate idea of what it means but until 2007 nobody had a precise definition. We set out in 2007 to remedy this lack of clarity and to provide a specific definition of rights grabbing with respect to photography competitions. Later we will give that definition but first we will discuss rights grabbing in general and it's effects.

Harvesting photographs from competition entrants to build valuable picture libraries that can be commercially exploited for the benefit of the organiser, and no benefit to the entrants who created the photographs, is generally viewed as rights grabbing. Rights grabbing can take many forms and the language used to express it in competition terms and conditions can be complex, subtle, and disguised.

The World Intellectual Property Organization defines the purpose of copyright and related rights as follows-

The purpose of copyright and related rights is twofold: to encourage a dynamic creative culture, while returning value to creators so that they can lead a dignified economic existence, and to provide widespread, affordable access to content for the public.

Rights grabbing seeks to take advantage of a dynamic creative culture without returning value to creators and therefore the practice of rights grabbing is unethical.

Damage caused by Rights Grabbing

Rights grabbing is damaging to human creativity. It damages the photography industry by reducing the need to commission or purchase photographs from photographers or picture libraries. Professional photographers will find it more and more difficult to survive as these 'harvested' libraries increase. Rights grabbing devalues photography by building image libraries at no cost. 

Many amateurs aspire to become professional photographers. It will be increasingly difficult for them to turn their dream into reality when large libraries of 'rights grabbed' images are available to satisfy the needs of image buyers thus making photography as a profession less viable. In the case of the public rights grabbing is exploiting their lack of knowledge about the value of their work and they may find their family or holiday snaps being used to advertise products that they would not approve of.

In one sense it is also damaging to the organisations who use rights grabbing as a means building image libraries. The practice is seen as unethical and therefore it damages an organisations standing within the photographic world and beyond.

In August 2007 the first draft of the Bill of Rights for Photography Competitions was created to set out in detail those rights that competition organisers need and can claim to promote their competitions. There was liaison with competition organisers and photographic associations to ensure that the provisions set out in the Bill of Rights were reasonable and fair to both competition organisers and competitions entrants.

Rights grabbing can now be defined as a claim made within competition terms and conditions for rights from entrants in excess of those that the Bill of Rights for Photography Competitions permits an organiser to claim.

Unintentional Rights Grabbing

As a result of discussions with many competition organisers it has been realised that competition terms and conditions do not always accurately reflect the organisers intent with regard to how they will use the images.

On many occasions it has been discovered that organisers terms and conditions, which implied they were going to exploit the images commercially, did not in fact reflect the use the organiser was going to make of the images, they had no intent to commercially exploit the entrants images.  Further discussion revealed in some of these instances that they had been advised by the lawyer to claim such and such a right simply to protect the organiser against potential claims that entrants might make concerning the use made of their image.

On other occasions, the organiser, having no knowledge of rights and licensing had simply copied the terms and conditions from another contest. If, without understanding them, they copied T&C's from a contest using rights grabbing terms and conditions the organiser would not realise that this was going look very bad and they would be quite shocked to find themselves the target of angry complaints from photographers.

Unfortunately one can only judge how a contest may use the entrants images by reading the terms and conditions.

The Bill of Rights for Photography Competitions sets out in precise detail the rights an organiser can claim. We have also written an Organisers Guide to the Bill of Rights; if you are an organiser you can use that guide to help you draft the terms and conditions with regard to the rights you need to promote your competition. It will also advise what you should include in the competition terms and conditions to provide legal protection against the various claims that could arise from running a photography competition.