SmugFrog said:
I wonder how many people will read the "fine print"?
By participating in this contest, contestants grant Themis Group, Inc. the right to print, publish, broadcast and use worldwide in any media now known or hereafter developed, including, without limitation, the World Wide Web, at any time or times, the contestant's name, as news or for public information and education without additional consideration or compensation. Any entry becomes the property of Themis Group, Inc. and will not be returned. Entrants surrender copyright and all interests therein of their submissions to Themis Group, Inc. with the understanding that the materials may be used for promotional purposes.
A little restrictive - but I suppose it is a way to get something on the resume if you're not going to publish something you want to own the rights to.
This is exactly one of the reasons why I gave up on my writing ambitions. Basically you can't submit to a publisher nowadays without signing a contract that basically says they have the right to rob you.
A lot of people in writing will tell you that such contracts seek to protect the publisher, and that nobody is going to steal an idea down the road because everyone has enough of their own ideas in any kind of creative industry that they "Want to do given the oppertunity" that they certainly aren't going to be interested in yours. I believe The Escapist had an article called "Your idea sucks" saying the same basic thing in regards to video game ideas.
On the other hand my experience has shown exactly the opposite. I'm still a fairly big fan of the product of an RPG company called "Palladiumbooks" and used to frequent their forums regularly (I don't anymore, and no it's not because I was banned or anything). For anyone who has followed things like RIFTS, Heroes Unlimited, or whatever you might have some knowlege of the things that happened to some of their more prolific writers like CJ Carella, and Bill Coffin over a period of time, and how it didn't end happily. As well as old allegations revolving around D&D/AD&D about Gary Gygax stealing the work of other people and putting his name on it due to some contract that claimed he had the right to, which is allegedly what started the chain of events that lead to him being booted by his own company.
I am intentionally avoiding specifics on a lot of this, and I could mention other things. However in general the danger tends to be less that someone will steal your work verbatim, but rather take ideas or pieces from it as part of another work, and not give you any credit. Say for example you make a TV pilot or movie that doesn't get picked up, but becomes the property of some studio. Down the road someone doesn't take your work directly, but liked a couple of ideas or specific scenes and how you shot them which were really creative, and then does the same thing verbatim in his own work and winds up being lauded as a genius for basically copying you...
Despite how this might sound I doubt anything will happen to those that do submit to this contests, but yeah... I agree that is really restrictive. I have no artistic talent, but if I did I would try and avoid this, and would be a lot more receptive if the host could find some way of covering themselves without basically legally contracting their right to rob you.
It is however not unusual, that's pretty much what you'd have to agree to just to submit to a hobby magazine like an RPG periodical or whatever.
