Overreaching Clauses for Photographers

By submitting an Essay, each entrant will be deemed to have granted Sponsor all rights, including copyright, in the Essay, any photo of the winner, and any other copyrighted or copyrightable materials furnished by entrant in connection with this contest, including the right to copy, edit, broadcast, publish and use, in whole or in part, and to license others to exercise the same rights, in any manner without further compensation.

This is an excerpt from the terms and conditions of The Hachette Book Group USA photo essay contest. The photographer grants the contest sponsor the entire copyright in the photographs and any other material submitted with the photographs (such as explanatory text . . . ). Hachette can make any use it wants, and can permit others to make any use, without consulting or paying the creator.

By entering the Contest, entrants agree to assign their intellectual property rights to Sponsor and permit Sponsor to use the photos in any media, including the Internet, for any purpose whatsoever. Entrants who do not agree to this use should not enter this Contest.

Caveat contestant! This is from the terms and conditions of a photography contest sponsored by Better Homes & Gardens. The author gives up all her rights to the contest sponsor, who may use the photo in any medium and for any purpose. Because it is such a broad clause, it allows for the publisher to alter the photograph as well, even though this is not explicitly stated.

Consultant agrees to transfer and assign, and hereby transfers and assigns, to Company and its designees, without further compensation, the entire right, title and interest throughout the world in and to: (a) all Technical Information first produced by Consultant in the performance of this Agreement; (b) all Intellectual Property resulting from Consultant's activities under this Agreement; (c) all Intellectual Property relating to any Deliverables under this Agreement; and (d) creations and inventions that are otherwise made through the use of Company's or its affiliates equipment, supplies, facilities, materials and/or Proprietary Information. All such Technical Information and Intellectual Property that are protectable by copyright will be considered work(s) made by Consultant for hire for Company (as works made for hire is defined in the United States Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C.01) and will belong exclusively to Company. If by operation of law any of such Technical Information or Intellectual Property is not owned in its entirety by Company automatically upon creation, Consultant agrees to transfer and assign, and hereby transfers and assigns, same as stated in the first sentence of this Section.

This is an agreement between a photographer and a media conglomerate. It stipulates that the work is to be classified as a 'Work Made For Hire' and that all copyrights in the work will belong to the hiring party.

In consideration for being permitted to photograph the musical group currently and professionally known as BAND and/or any individual member thereof, the undersigned ("you"), for yourself and on behalf of your heirs and assigns, hereby agree that any photographs ("Photos"), including the negatives and transparencies, taken on the date of DATE, shall be utilized solely for the assignment ("Assignment") commissioned and/or assigned by EMPLOYER. You hereby agree that the Photos shall not be used and/or or exploited for any other purpose or in any other manner other than for the Assignment, including, without limitation, for any commercial exploitation, on any musical recordings, on any packaging of any musical recordings, and/or in connection with any advertising, promotional merchandising and/or publicity relating to any musical recordings. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you shall have the right to use the Photos for use in your own professional portfolio.

This is a contract between a photographer on assignment and a musical group. Note that the photographer's rights are likely further constrained by a contract between her and her employer.

This contract gets the harshest rating because of what it does not discuss. It says that the photographer can only use the pictures for the purposes of her assignment. The problem is that the contract doesn't address who owns the copyright in the work. It does limit the photographer's uses of the work, but it is unclear on other points, such as alteration of the work, attribution, and internet usage.

A. Ownership of Contributions. Each of your Contributions will be original and solely created by you as a "work-made-for-hire" specially ordered or commissioned by us, with XXX Media being deemed the sole author of the Contribution and the owner of all rights whether now known or hereafter devised (including all copyrights and all extensions and renewals of copyrights) in and to the Contribution, with the right to make all uses of the Contribution throughout the world and all changes in each Contribution. Without further obligation to you, we may use, reproduce, edit, change, add to, take from, translate, reformat, or reprocess the Contribution in any manner. To the extent any Contribution is not deemed to be a work made for hire, you irrevocably assign to us all rights whether now known or hereafter devised (including all copyrights and all extensions and renewals of copyrights) in and to each Contribution throughout the world, including any and all of your rights to authorize or control the exploitation of each Contribution by any media and means now known or hereafter devised. You waive all "moral rights of authors" that may exist or any similar rights. We may, but are not obligated to, provide attribution to you in connection with any Contribution or to display, use or otherwise exploit any Contribution. We have the right, without liability to you, to use any ideas, suggestions, or questions provided by you to us. Upon request by us, you will promptly provide us with such documents and agreements as we may require to further evidence and confirm your representations, warranties, and covenants under this Agreement, including material and location releases and assignments.

B. Our License To You. We grant you a royalty-free, limited, nonexclusive, nonlicensable license to the Contributions for performance, distribution, and display on your personal or business website so long as your website contains no less than 1 prominent crawlable link to the WEBSITE OPERATOR Website appearing in close proximity to each Contribution on your website.

This could be one of the most overreaching contracts we have on our site. It's between a company that runs a website and seeks contributions (photographs and written works). This contract dictates that the work is a work for hire even though there is no evidence that the contribution fits the description in Section 101 of the Copyright Act. Furthermore, it says that the site does not have to give the author credit for his or her work and may even use the author's ideas or suggestions without remuneration or credit. Finally, it allows the author to use his or her work only in connection with his or her own website and then only if a link is provided to the website to which the work was contributed.