Apple announces it will pay licensing fee to 'Shot on iPhone' contest winners after complaints

As long as most in society do not question unbridled greed, it will continue to be the norm, including yes among the companies that you all praise unquestioningly.

Unfortunately we live in a world where enough people are wealthy enough to give away their work for free, destroying the livelihood of many of the rest. The internet introduced efficiencies and Silicon Valley created parasitic business models that exacerbated this problem into a crisis. The problem is much wider than contests and extends to things like unpaid internships in many companies, which exclude many students who don't have rich parents from entire sectors of the economy. It also includes the free labor most of us do every day for google, facebook, even dpreview. Government regulations and unionization on a large scale will probably be needed before anything changes.

It's amazing how many people (here in comments) Apple has wronged. Surely they will go out of business any week now.

How about Google doing a similar competition called "Not shot on an iPhone".

It's not just Apple in the "land grab". Even when you (the photographer) is paying for as service such as printing and photo boos, you have to look long and hard for a company that does NOT claim the right to use your photos for its own promotion, and some even claim to be able to sell them to other companies. BEWARE.

like always they have listened to their users.............

Mighty big of the first company to reach a trillion dollar valuation.

From Om Malik, tech commentator/reporter/Apple observer:

From what I am hearing from within Apple, the plan was to pay a licensing fee and not call it a prize. That is an argument I buy!

They’ve been paying licensing fees for “Shot on iPhone” photos all along, so this passes the sniff test.

From Shawn King, another long term Apple observer:
I heard from a “friend” at Apple who said, “Another reason why this isn’t a contest with prizes? Legal. There are a whole other set of rules if Apple offers prizes and those rules differ from country to country. This way, Apple doesn’t have to worry about it.” Makes sense.

That does make sense, especially since the contest is worldwide, including China.

--So it ends up that Apple has been paying licensing fees all along, but the key point is that they do not call it a "prize" for various reasons.

Photographers, commercial or hobbyists, are getting mean-spirited.
Have a heart people.
How could you ask POOR Apple to compensate you for your artistic work!!!

Wait to see Apple's "generosity", and how many "pennies" it will offer to pay.

Apple said "Apple believes strongly that artists should be compensated for their work. Photographers who shoot the final 10 winning photos will receive a licensing fee for use of such photos on billboards and other Apple marketing channels."
So this means they can do anything with the rest of the photos that dont make the top 10.
Disgusting greedy pigs

BTW - just so you know. This is what DPReview state on their web site.

"All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1998 - 2019 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited."

I cannot find any specific about DPReview challenges. So, I assume the above is included in the general blurb. Do you feel comfortable regarding that?

So! What fee? Does it say anywhere what licensing fee you will get?

Apart from that. Why not say "Oops. Sorry. We have changed our mind due to your wishes." ? Why the blurb about believing in that artists shall be compensated? Whether someone shall be compensated or not is due to the contract, no matter if it is an artist or not. There are lots of photo contests without prices.

what if everyone pulls out their images from stocks photography and exert a voice like a photographer's union for minimum "wage" per photo sold.

shutterstock
fotolia
getty
123rf
<you name it>

With every new site wanting a pie of selling creative work that they only provide the platform, a new low hits the market.

The goons that made the initial fine print are not photographers, nor any love for it, its that evident. They are just following the sentiments and market flows of what is essentially a spiralling downward valuation for images.

This spiral wont end, until its 0, unless every photographer do something about it, together.

Rapacious men at Apple were not idiots when they wrote the first license agreement; they were only testing if the photographers were idiots. That, on itself, is a definition of the unscrupulous behaviour.

The winners will receive a 2% discount on the most expensive iPhone model.

I have been telling people about this for years and no one has ever believed me.

Apple is the richest company in the world and they are screwing artists over. I really think there is a great danger in a company like Apple, the richest company in the world that has been ruthlessly taking like this when it should be at least paying people for their content. I'm glad their practices are starting to come to light but I bet it changes nothing in the end. They really do think you are just lucky to have your work on their marketing and campaigns. They are have been screwing artists over like this for a long time - it's unbelievable to me that the richest company in the world does not pay for their content.

The really good news is the negative response on the DPR forum to Apple's original licensing terms. . . Most of the time the attitude toward image licensing fees leans strongly towards "I'll take anything I am offered to see my images in print." It's very disheartening to see so many photographers support royalty-free and micro-royalty stock along with accepting whatever licensing fee/"exposure" non-fee is offered them.

"Apple believes strongly that artists should be compensated for their work."
They only just started believing that it seems lol

Let's just call what these "contests" really are. Legalized theft.

I haven't read the updated fine print but folks should be cautious of even participating in some of these without checking what rights they are transferring. Hidden in many of these agreement is that even if your photo doesn't win, you still grant them rights to use it , sometimes for more than just contest promotion usage, if you're okay with that. It's like a mad dash for free stock images for some of these companies.

That's not so much a "clarifying" as an "about face".

And then it turns out the 14th photo is the one that goes viral...

Sorry, I don't get the anger. First, I despise Apple, for a variety of reasons. However, They are not out trolling for iPhone images and snagging them unbeknownst to the photographer. The photographers literally had to make an effort to submit a photo to the contest, which was fully disclosed. No one is compelled to enter, they do so at their own free will.

If you want to be paid for your photography, spend your time and energy engaging in paying endeavors, rather than so much time and energy complaining about what you willingly agreed to.

And people keep paying thousands of dollars every year on new phones which are not phones anymore but cameras wannabes. Pathetic....

I find it interesting why Apple thinks it's okay to pay millions of dollars to print giant billboard shots, pay the landlords that own the billboards, pay countless people to judge/select the photos, pay printer shops, media companies to showcase the iPhone photos, yet chose to not pay a license fee to the person that took the actual shot?! It just seems to trivial. The photo would have been the cheapest part of the entire production.

Apple did deserve a little bit of a lashing on this. Sure, some supporters think it's okay for Apple to not pay the photo winners and that's their choice, but in the end it shows that there is inherent value to photography.

The rest of you ranters just have the typical iHating mentality no matter what Apple does.

It is absolutely DISGUSTING to me that a company which makes billions every year couldn't be bothered to pay the winners fairly for the use of their photos. It blows my mind that they had to be shamed into it. If there's anyone who can afford to give fair (or even generous) compensation, it's Apple. They should be thankful to the people who are willing to spend upwards of $1,300 per phone every couple of years, but instead they were perfectly willing to rip the photographers off. Yes.... it's true that if you disagree with their lack of compensation and still participate for credit, that's your choice,... but how many young creators are taught that because they enjoy photography or art, they don't deserve pay for it? They're creating low self-value in creatives, reinforcing the idea that their work is only worth "credit". BULL!

apple damage control,lets give 10 of these characters a pittance ina addition to the photo credit

ooo , everything is wonderful , this shot vacat. is by annie B..... heres a fun environmental by trevor G.and the this amazing 3 person selfie of a hottie trio is by alexis j.....'
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but perhaps what we really need is a little Malcolm X, speaking truth to power

I didn't see the normal legal jargon that defined what an iPhone is. If I call my android phone an iPhone, does that mean it is eligible?

What? Paying for stuff instead of stealing?
What kind of monsters are these?
Don't they know that theft is the new disruptor?

Apple is just pathetic.

Great! Now all the people who complained that weren't going to participate anyway can now continue to not participate anyway.

So it's easy, let the 10 worst images win, use the rest for free.

Apple tripping over their own tongues. LOL 😁

Others made a good point about all the remaining photos, besides those top 10.

If Apple is thinking along my logic, they should clarify that the other photos will only be used for the contest and not in advertising or other revenue generation.

If they receive an unusually large number of good photos, they can later expand the pool and say we now consider the top 100 or whatever.

Even if Apple paid top 100 contestants at $10,000 each, that 1 mil is nothing compared to their advertising spend. On the other hand, they will sell another million phones with that good publicity.

APPLE... don't be penny wise, pound foolish. Do the right thing AND publicize it.

To enter the contest, I will have to first pay 1000€ for an iPhone. Considering the chance of winning and the UNKNOWN prize, I think it is safe to pass the deal.

I’m sorry. Hate to say this. But Apple is on the way out. 🥴

Apple "2$ is the best I can do. You are lucky to shoot with a cheap 1600$ phone, next year they'll be 1900$"

I think another stipulation is that the photographer must be allowed to put a watermark on the images that are selected (small, not large and obnoxious) but atl east to get their name out there on their photo....