I'm seeing it all the time, from equine magazines to commercial horse product manufacturers: prizes offered for entering their photo contest. The latest is from Troxel, the helmet people. Offering about $250 in prizes of a helmet/vest/carry bag for the first place, helmets for 2-5th. Everyone who enters has given the rights to have their photo used in perpetuity for any use Troxel deems useful, without any further compensation, credit, etc. Troxel thought it worthwhile enough to fill out a contact form on my website, inviting me to submit, just so you don't think I'm particularly picking on them. Dover Saddlery is another who recently did one of these contest aka image grabs.
Companies use these user-provided photos for their image libraries. They don't want to pay professional photographers for their stock images, why should they when they can get "just as good" images for free? Whether web-res or print-resolution, this is just wrong. Sometimes it's just the legal department going "over the top", and when questioned, sometimes companies will revise their Terms and Conditions. Don't enter without reading the T&Cs, or you'll deserve what you get. Click to read more.
