Winning entries to the 2007 North Dakota Governor’s Photo Contest will each win $100. In fact, a friend of mine had three winning photos last year for a mathematically predictable $300 in prize money. The deadline for the contest, however, is September 7th. That’s Friday, folks…and since they want a print copy along with a CD of the photo (if digital), that puts the pressure on anyone who wants to enter but hasn’t.

I was pretty excited about this contest and looking forward to entering, until I saw the following text in the news release announcing the contest:

North Dakota Tourism will retain exclusive ownership rights to all winning photographs for use in the 2008 North Dakota Travel Guide, Hunting and Fishing Guide and on the Tourism Division’s Web site.

What they’re doing is actually getting cheap stock photography. If a person goes to a professional stock photo site, a single photo can cost in the hundreds of dollars. Even then, the purchaser does not get ownership rights to the photo! Since there are few North Dakota photos on the stock photo sites anyway, it makes sense to try to lure North Dakotans to send in their own for a meager prize.

I don’t sell ownership rights to my photos, period. I’ve sold prints for the $250-300 range, but even those have a copyright penned on them next to my signature. These days one can’t be too careful to protect one’s intellectual property, and I keep up on the legal ins & outs of doing so since I work in this business.

If you don’t mind signing away the ownership rights to one of your photos, and can get a print done overnight at Bob’s Photo and run up to the capitol before end-of-business Friday, enter the contest! A hundred bucks is a hundred bucks, after all. But just make sure you’re aware that they intend to own exclusive rights to that photo. It’s up to you whether that’s worth it.