Jim Goldstein has posted a must-read article on photo contests that describes something I noticed a while ago – if you enter your work in many of the online and other photography contests you may be giving up all of your rights to your photograph without compensation merely by entering.

You don’t want to do this.

Jim writes:

So you’ve got this incredible image that you’ve got to show the world. Not only are you going to share it with your friends online, but you’re also going to enter it in a contest or two to win some fabulous prizes. Well before you do I recommend reading the fine print, that includes the the Terms of Use (ToU) for web sites and Contest Rules for, you guessed it, photo contests.

One of the most underhanded tactics sweeping the online and publishing world is the hijacking of photo rights through inequitable terms buried in the fine print of legalese for contests and web sites. The perpetrators will no doubt surprise you, they include the likes of Facebook, National Geographic + PDN, Popular Photo, and more.

This issue is not a new one and has reared its ugly head in the past on other photo sharing sites, but now this tactic is becoming increasingly common with major players. Offending words such as perpetual, royalty-free license and irrevocable are being introduced to hijack the rights to photographs of well intended photographers looking to play the odds to have their work recognized in a contest or just to simply share with friends.

This is why I’ve avoided entering any of these contests and while I’ll continue to do so. And it is not just photo contests. Jim points out that by posting your work to Facebook you may also surrender your rights to your work!

Jump on over to Jim’s site and read more about this.