Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:
Apple’s announcement yesterday of a contest to find the ten best shot on iPhone photos has provoked debate about the company’s policy of not paying for any of the photos, even when they are used in global advertising campaigns.
The argument that Apple should pay seems obvious enough, but not everyone agrees.
Very interesting back and forth here. Never even occurred to me that Apple should pay for these photos.
On one hand, these photos are used in a professional marketing campaign. On the other, if they offered lucrative prizes, more pros would step in and the average kelley would have less of a chance.
“Never even occurred to me that Apple should pay for these photos.” Because you’re not a pro. Pros worry/think about exactly these kinds of things with every photo they offer. The lack of compensation (hell, even the expressed “You can’t make money from this image for a year while we use it for free” clause) is *exactly* why I don’t enter “contests” like these.
Not just the “last few years”. It’s been going on for at least as long as I’ve been a photographer (15 years) and undoubtedly much longer than that.
It’s disappointing to see both Apple descend to this sort of thing and a Loop writer equivocate about it.
Dave, there is no other hand. You pay for use.
Oh yeah, it’s always existed. It just feels like the last 5 or so years it’s been really ramping up. I’ve been a pro photographer for 13 years and have always seen it happen. I’m glad that at least now people are rightly calling it out.
“Contests” that trawl for free creative work degrade and impoverish the profession they’re attempting to avoid compensating. They help lower expectations for every future potential client about what constitutes good work that’s worth paying a fair price for.
If you wanna get paid, don’t enter their contest, which says up front it won’t pay?
I can’t believe Apple would force professionals to work for free. Oh wait, they’re not. If I’ve learned anything from Clients from Hell, it’s that (real) professionals don’t work for exposure. An unpaid contest is an amateur event. A real pro would respect that and move on to a paid gig. If you choose to waste your talents on an unpaid contest, don’t cry over it.
Ref. below and above, this contest is not about professionals.
It’s aimed at amateurs who think the idea of having their photo picked is cool, and to sell iPhones to other amateurs who want a nice phone camera.
Pro photographers should not and presumably will not participate, Apple doesn’t think they’re going to get a lot of pros, and they’re certainly not worried about the cost of paying ten pros for a photo each for this; they could do that out of rounding error in the global marketing budget, no?
This has become far more common in the last few years- contests asking for people to submit creative work without any sort of compensation, just bragging rights. The company saves money on not having to pay licensing fees, and the winner is happy to have won the contest but then is restricted from sharing their work elsewhere. This kind of thing needs to stop.
Apple should pay to use the photos. Pros will submit pictures to this contest regardless of whether there are prizes or not, so that is a moot point. The solution is quite easy: limit the contest to non-pros. There are plenty of photo contests where this occurs, and have defined rules for what constitutes a pro and a non-pro.
Certainly; simple if it doesn’t affect you personally.
The marketplace for pro photographers might disagree.
This is a multinational corporate marketing campaign. Don’t dangle “free exposure” in front of photographers (or potential photographers) who are trying to support themselves. Don’t try to convince pros or sem-pros that providing work for free is in any way fair. Apple’s supposed to be better than that libertarian nonsense.
If I’ve learned anything from Clients from Hell, it’s that there is no shortage of entrepreneurial douchebags out there who see “contests” like this and expect aspiring professionals to give them work for free.
compensate them.
“Aspiring professionals” means amateurs.
Thanks for avoiding my point.
Make a point and I’ll address it. It’s an amateur contest (regardless of whether they pay a license fee), and an “aspiring professional” who works for exposure isn’t really “aspiring”. They see photography as easy work and just want that “big break”. I have no ill will towards them, but I have no sympathy either. If you’re really aspiring to be a professional, you take unpaid jobs to build experience and a portfolio of work. That’s an aspiring professional, and they wouldn’t go out of their way for a contest.
You seem to like that word a lot; you used it three times. But “aspiring” aside, your generalizations still overlook the existence of business owners who’ll see this contest (before the licensing fee was offered) as a reason to not pay for genuine work elsewhere.
Why is that anyone else’s problem? If someone wants to run their business that way, that’s literally their business. Kinda doubt they’ll save any money after hiring celebrity judges.