Ellesse: They listened and they heard…

I am really pleased to report (as those who have read the comment on the last post) that Ellesse have listened to the points raised by a number of photographers (including me) and have changed the Terms and Conditions of their competition 
    • 9.1 By entering the Competition you agree that any winning Entry, of the Competition or the Weekly Competition (“Winning Entry”), may be used by Ellesse (and its partners) for the marketing and promotion of this and future competitions (“Competition Marketing and Promotional Purposes”).
    • 9.2 You hereby acknowledge that Ellesse may have to crop and re-size the Winning Entries as necessary for Competition Marketing and Promotional Purposes.
    • 9.3 The Winners’ names shall appear on all Winning Entries reproduced by ellesse for Competition Marketing and Promotional Purposes.
    • 9.4 You hereby grant Ellesse a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide licence for each Winning Entry in all media for the uses described in 9.1 above for 2 (two) years following the date of announcement of the Winners.
    • 9.5 Ellesse shall contact you and afford you the opportunity to negotiate the terms of any additional usage of Entries falling outside of Competition Marketing and Promotional Purposes

The key is the photographer is now granting a license to Ellesse enabling them to use the photograph and not actually giving them the photograph. 


I think that when companies create terms like the original terms (previous post) it is through ignorance and a poor understanding of copyright / licensing. 


Well done Ellesse.. 

Ellesse: They probably create fine sportswear but they know very little about fair play..

Remember my posting a while back on how some companies use photography competitions to get free images? Well we have another one..

“Ellesse shall own the entire copyright and all other rights in the winning photos. By entering the Competition, the Winner(s) irrevocably grant(s) and assign(s) to Ellesse all rights in their entry and agrees specifically to Ellesse’s use of their entry for all marketing and promotional purposes. In additional Ellesse shall have a non-exclusive licence to use other entries for PR purposes and shall contact the relevant Entrant(s) prior to such use.”

So, the winner can never actually (legally) use their image again – they have given ALL rights to the image to Ellesse and (legally) should delete it from their computer (unless of course, they ask Ellesse to grant them a license for private use ;-) ).

All of the other entries may be used for PR? At least there is no hidden agenda here, they are quite open, they want to use YOUR images free of charge to help THEM sell their goods and make a profit for themselves..

As long as we are clear then (which we are, because it says so above), thats ok then…

Are competitions just a way for corporations to get free images?

The terms and conditions of a photographic competition were hi-lighted to me yesterday by another professional;

  • All entries must be photographs taken and owned by you.
  • By submitting your photographs to **** Cruise Lines, you are agreeing for us to publish your photographs at any time, in any publication or on-line, and in any capacity we choose.
  • By entering your photographs into this competition, you are then agreeing to transfer the copyright of such images to **** Cruise Lines
  • **** Cruise Lines reserves the right to modify any photographs submitted, such as amending colours, cropping or re-sizing.
  • The photographs should be limited to destinations visited by **** Cruise Lines, or of one of our ships.
  • **** Cruise Lines reserves the right to cancel the competition at any stage.
  • Entrants should ensure that, where relevant, they obtain consent for the photograph to be used from any people featured.
This is just an excerpt, take a look at their entry page here to see what you think. I do not think there is any way to take it other than “we want lots of free images of our ships which we will probably using in marketing saving us thousands of pounds in photographer fees over the next few years”.