That's quite a bit more rant than necessary to make the point, and frankly, the notoriety of being one of the winner's is worth more than the cash.
Bullshit. Name one situation without Googling where a winner benefitted more than a six figure cash value.
You people are insane if you think a silly shot on iphone contest like this would pay...six figures. hilarious.
A $100 gift card is the most you could hope for.
Six figures isn't going to happen, no way, no how. Apple has run several contests over the years, and have implemented pretty good prizes, up to and including high-end gear.
The fact that this one doesn't even have a $100 gift card for services is ludicrous.
That's quite a bit more rant than necessary to make the point, and frankly, the notoriety of being one of the winner's is worth more than the cash.
Bullshit. Name one situation without Googling where a winner benefitted more than a six figure cash value.
The mythical six figure cash value...
Name one situation, without Googling, where a winner in an open photograph competition, without entry fees, received six figures.
I'll wait.
Would be glad to, once you answer my question. Apple is one of the largest companies by market cap, revenue and profits. And they can't even pay a photographer. This is exploitation pure and simple and is an insult to the very artists they purport to support.
It’s not a commercial endeavor, it’s a silly contest and most of the winners will be normal non-pro users. They certainly do pay their photographers in commercial endeavors.
Why isn’t Apple giving the winners something to generate excitement? Mac Pro, iMac, IPad, iPhone, AirPods, etc. It doesn’t need to be cash...
No an exciting contest at all...
Because they are greeeeeedy! I loved their products when they were good bang for the buck, but today's Apple is more like HP and DELL and the likes, they care of bottom lines and share holders.
Ignorant claim — Apple doesn’t manage to the stock price, they manage to the customer. They’re famous for this distinction, and it upsets many investors.
“The Dumbest Idea In The World: Maximizing Shareholder Value”
So don’t enter the contest. This is too much about nothing. You are, perhaps unaware that EVERY photo you store on Google is usable by them without your consent and no remuneration. You seem to have failed the one thing necessary for any editorial comment: knowledge about your subject.
Your whataboutism is noted. We're aware that every photo that you store on Google is usable without renumeration, and it is one reason, amongst many others, that we don't use the service. It isn't relevant to the point, at all.
Google has clearly stated that Your photos remain yours and yours alone. Google does not claim any right to use any uploaded of your Google Photos for promotional purposes or monitization, nor have they done so. Not even once. Those that claim otherwise haven't taken the time to check the facts.
That is incorrect. While the terms have changed in the last few years, they were originally this:
"When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps)."
They were added to later, either 6 or 7 months later, I can't seem to find the exact date in my notes and logs, with this:
"Some of our Services allow you to upload, submit, store, send or receive content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours."
I am 100% correct.
Mike, what does that last paragraph mean to you? All the text preceding that is boilerplate language to cover cases where for example you have asked Google to share a particular image with one of your contacts, or Google reviews and organizes your photos as part of their user services, or perhaps completing some other request you yourself made.
I believe your memory of that last paragraph having been added 6 months months later is faulty. Google expressly stated within days of the service rolling out "Google Photos will not use images or videos uploaded onto Google Photos commercially for any promotional purposes, unless we ask for the user's explicit permission". It was added almost immediately as I recall as needed clarification due to all the misinformation circulating about that Google was going to be using your photos for ads and you had no control over it. That was never the case and as circumstantial evidence for that there's never been a single proven instance of them monetizing or marketing a Google Photos uploaded image without express permission from the that photo's owner. And that owner is YOU.
I would suggest that in the interest of truth and accuracy if you believe otherwise you should do two things: First contact Google directly for clarification. Secondly find any instance of Google using one of their users uploaded photos for an ad, or selling it to a 3rd party, or even for promoting Google own services without your express permission, show they are not being honest about it.
Don't take my word for it, go to the source. Otherwise you're not doing readers any favor if what you thought was true is not but you add to the misreporting anyway by just not checking where the truth is. We generally trust what you say and it's not in anyone interest for you not to continue deserving that trust. Verification isn't that hard. You should do it.
You left off the bottom of the quoted paragraph, the part about "standing reminded." Anyway, in the interim and to educate myself more given that I didn't remember the revision clearly, I did talk to both a lawyer and a contact inside Google.
From the former, regardless if Google did or did not use any photos from a user, that initial version of the terms of service absolutely gave Google permission to use contents in advertising without explicit permission from the user. Cue internet drama in 2015.
From the latter, the add-on paragraph about getting explicit permission was added 112 days after the first terms were published. She was unaware if any photos were used for advertising, but I suspect that they weren't. It's great that it appears that they didn't, but in 2015, Google had a passel of attorneys write this, and the omission of the explicit permission part at the time of publication is fairly glaring.
Thanks for checking Mike, as I was sure you would.
So we're now in agreement that Google cannot use your private Google Photo images for marketing and such nor lays claim to ownership of them contrary to what some folks think including some generally well-informed AI members?
Uh, your quibble was over whether it had always been this way. You implied yes, and Mike refuted that. Interesting you feel compelled to rewrite it like he is agreeing with you now. This is likely a disorder.
That's quite a bit more rant than necessary to make the point, and frankly, the notoriety of being one of the winner's is worth more than the cash.
Either way, there won't be a lack of participants.
"the notoriety of being one of the winner's is worth more than the cash" I hate to say this, but what "notoriety." Maybe 15 minutes of fame is better than nothing. But honestly, this is a common practice with a lot of companies to get their customers to do the leg work for free.
You also need to read the fine print. "Providing a Submission constitutes entrant’s consent to give Sponsor a royalty-free, irrevocable, non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, publish, and and display such Submissions in whole or in part, on a worldwide basis, in any form, media or technology now known or later developed for one year for purposes of implementing the Contest."
Please explain to the thousands that enter the contest that their photo submission is subject to be used as Apple pleases with no compensation or recognition. They only guarantee credit to the winner. Even that will be insignificant. Everyone else is SOL. This contest is primarily to provide Apple's marketing team and third party associates, such as PR and Ad agencies a new free large supply of royalty free images to use however they please. This contest is going to save Apple millions within a year. I would at least offer the winner a maxed out iMac pro. Their actual cost for a fully stocked imac pro is pennies compared to the money they will save through the contest.
This type of marketing tactic is why Apple is failing, but what is insulting is that they know that a majority of people will drink their kool-aid without question.
So don’t enter the contest. This is too much about nothing. You are, perhaps unaware that EVERY photo you store on Google is usable by them without your consent and no remuneration. You seem to have failed the one thing necessary for any editorial comment: knowledge about your subject.
Your whataboutism is noted. We're aware that every photo that you store on Google is usable without renumeration, and it is one reason, amongst many others, that we don't use the service. It isn't relevant to the point, at all.
Google has clearly stated that Your photos remain yours and yours alone. Google does not claim any right to use any uploaded of your Google Photos for promotional purposes or monitization, nor have they done so. Not even once. Those that claim otherwise haven't taken the time to check the facts.
That is incorrect. While the terms have changed in the last few years, they were originally this:
"When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps)."
They were added to later, either 6 or 7 months later, I can't seem to find the exact date in my notes and logs, with this:
"Some of our Services allow you to upload, submit, store, send or receive content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours."
I am 100% correct.
Mike, what does that last paragraph mean to you? All the text preceding that is boilerplate language to cover cases where for example you have asked Google to share a particular image with one of your contacts, or Google reviews and organizes your photos as part of their user services, or perhaps completing some other request you yourself made.
I believe your memory of that last paragraph having been added 6 months months later is faulty. Google expressly stated within days of the service rolling out "Google Photos will not use images or videos uploaded onto Google Photos commercially for any promotional purposes, unless we ask for the user's explicit permission". It was added almost immediately as I recall as needed clarification due to all the misinformation circulating about that Google was going to be using your photos for ads and you had no control over it. That was never the case and as circumstantial evidence for that there's never been a single proven instance of them monetizing or marketing a Google Photos uploaded image without express permission from the that photo's owner. And that owner is YOU.
I would suggest that in the interest of truth and accuracy if you believe otherwise you should do two things: First contact Google directly for clarification. Secondly find any instance of Google using one of their users uploaded photos for an ad, or selling it to a 3rd party, or even for promoting Google own services without your express permission, show they are not being honest about it.
Don't take my word for it, go to the source. Otherwise you're not doing readers any favor if what you thought was true is not but you add to the misreporting anyway by just not checking where the truth is. We generally trust what you say and it's not in anyone interest for you not to continue deserving that trust. Verification isn't that hard. You should do it.
You left off the bottom of the quoted paragraph, the part about "standing reminded." Anyway, in the interim and to educate myself more given that I didn't remember the revision clearly, I did talk to both a lawyer and a contact inside Google.
From the former, regardless if Google did or did not use any photos from a user, that initial version of the terms of service absolutely gave Google permission to use contents in advertising without explicit permission from the user. Cue internet drama in 2015.
From the latter, the add-on paragraph about getting explicit permission was added 112 days after the first terms were published. She was unaware if any photos were used for advertising, but I suspect that they weren't. It's great that it appears that they didn't, but in 2015, Google had a passel of attorneys write this, and the omission of the explicit permission part at the time of publication is fairly glaring.
Thanks for checking Mike, as I was sure you would.
So we're now in agreement that Google cannot use your private Google Photo images for marketing and such nor lays claim to ownership of them contrary to what some folks think including some generally well-informed AI members?
Uh, your quibble was over whether it had always been this way. You implied yes, and Mike refuted that. Interesting you feel compelled to rewrite it like he is agreeing with you now. This is likely a disorder.
Nope, no quibble, and no that's not even what the original disagreement was. Go back and look at the post he first quoted and what his response to that poster was. It was wrong in both fact and implication, but in fairness it's a relatively common belief among those who don't use the service.
For you sir, AFAIK Google has never laid claim to ownership of a users uploaded Google Photos. Some sources took a misunderstanding of the Google Privacy Policy and ran with it, leading to some folks still today erroneously claiming that Google says they own your photos and can use them for anything they see fit. It's not true now and wasn't true then. Google added an additional paragraph to make that eminently clear (later than I supposed so thanks for reaching out to Google Mike).
Google Photos are private by default and always have been.
Apple announced from the outset that photo winners won’t get prize money or other compensation beyond the personal satisfaction of winning the contest and the publicity that comes with it. All of that makes it an amateur competition. Professional photographers are not coerced into joining this crazy, uncompensated competition.
On a related matter, people who write comments below online articles are providing expertise and insights to publishers without compensation. So perhaps it is time for Appleinsider, the Washington Post and other publishers to start paying for those heretofore free contributions.
If the forums made us money, then we'd consider it. They do not, and they take money and time away from the publication as a whole. Also, we aren't using them for promotional purposes, so your metaphor falls flat.
In reality, the forums do make you money. The comments are why many show up. You also send out notifications concerning subjects the user has posted on returning them to the article, which equals more ad views. If you disabled comments on all articles your site would lose many loyal members. So your comment is not completely true.
99.4 percent of our traffic on a hit basis, not a number of users basis, has no forum presence, nor hit the forums at all. Comments attached to the stories on the homepage don't load unless the user scrolls down enough to see them, or gets close to, which, charitably 99.1 percent of our users don't do. Also, our best estimates suggest that 80% of the forum-goers have ad-blockers on, and it is likely far more than that.
You're welcome to draw your own conclusions from those numbers. But, the only one that can really be logically drawn is that my comment is completely true. Generating money is not the same as turning a profit on the investment, or even breaking even.
Has the site considered ditching the “forums” (which don’t even work correctly on iOS devices, which is whack), and simply implementing comments directly onto the article pages? Ex the Verge, etc... Then every single commenter is hitting your story page, rather than dividing your hits.
Aa far as I can tell, that is under consideration as Vanilla isn't superb. However, I have enough on my plate with content generation as my job to be absolutely sure and I haven't been a coder since >, *, and ].
It’s a dang shame that you guys can only think about money instead of the fact that you’re cool picture is around the world Shows how greedy everybody is gotten.
Greed? It’s called exchange of goods. It’s basic social economics. Basic capitalism. Usually people here on this forum are all about the capitalism, but that’s only for corporations, right? People defend corporations for making profit hand over fist, denying ethics any place in the discussion. But when it comes to non-corporate entities, suddenly asking for money as compensation is greed?? Your worldview is broken.
Your comment shows just how little you respect the notion of compensating individual people for their work. What could possibly be your motivation to mock people for desiring compensation be given to the creators of content being used for marketing, to make millions in sales of the product at the center of the campaign? What could possibly be the benefit to you in promoting this antisocial ideology? It’s especially egregious when their work will generate tons of profit for the corporation using the content without just compensation.
This contest nonsense is a common cost-cutting, exploitative tactic: exchanging worthless “exposure” for use of valuable content that would otherwise cost money to acquire.
Abusive tactics like this is part of the reason that many designers and photographers can’t live off of their expertise anymore. The economics of exchange, in the realm of visual arts, have been broken. Designers and photographers are treated as “elitists” because they want just financial compensation for their expertise. Expertise itself is treated as arrogance. It’s basic anti-intellectualism. Good job supporting anti-intellectualism.
It isn’t greed to ask for compensation from a corporation that makes a massively disproportionate amount of income compared to the people who’s content is used without compensation. This article is providing the service of pointing out this egregious disparity between the value of the outcome for Apple and the compensation given to those from whom they acquire their marketing content.
I would pay money for my photo to be used in a major Apple ad campaign. I couldn't afford to pay what the exposure would be worth though. It certainly isn't "worthless".
These photos will not generate tons of profits for Apple. Just like Nikon, Sony and Canon ambassadors (and their photos) don't generate a ton of profits for them. They get access to gear and additional exposure in exchange for their reputations as good photogs. The top tier ambassadors get financial sponsorships and free gear. Others just get a discount. The top tier ambassadors are either really great or have really great numbers of followers.
A random contest winner? They get the exposure to help make it to the next level if they want to.
All of this caterwauling over Apple not providing a cash prize for yet another photo contest. Do you all of you great visual artists decrying such "abuse" also heap scorn on Cannes? The winner of the Palme d'Or or the Grand Prix gets $0. They "just" get exposure and prestige. How much do you get when you win an Oscar for cinematography? $0. The statue is worth $10 (the academy has right of first refusal at $10).
While NatGeo offers a very nice Grand Prize (trip for 2 to the Galapagos) and first place ($2500) photos many others provide just exposure and prestige. For those claiming six figures...a Pulitzer winning photo is only $15,000 and a certificate.
If you don't like the value of the contest prize...don't enter. This is a very simple capitalistic evaluation to make. Nobody owes you a living as a photographer or stockbroker or software developer.
So don’t enter the contest. This is too much about nothing. You are, perhaps unaware that EVERY photo you store on Google is usable by them without your consent and no remuneration. You seem to have failed the one thing necessary for any editorial comment: knowledge about your subject.
Your whataboutism is noted. We're aware that every photo that you store on Google is usable without renumeration, and it is one reason, amongst many others, that we don't use the service. It isn't relevant to the point, at all.
Google has clearly stated that Your photos remain yours and yours alone. Google does not claim any right to use any uploaded of your Google Photos for promotional purposes or monitization, nor have they done so. Not even once. Those that claim otherwise haven't taken the time to check the facts.
That is incorrect. While the terms have changed in the last few years, they were originally this:
"When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps)."
They were added to later, either 6 or 7 months later, I can't seem to find the exact date in my notes and logs, with this:
"Some of our Services allow you to upload, submit, store, send or receive content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours."
I am 100% correct.
Mike, what does that last paragraph mean to you? All the text preceding that is boilerplate language to cover cases where for example you have asked Google to share a particular image with one of your contacts, or Google reviews and organizes your photos as part of their user services, or perhaps completing some other request you yourself made.
I believe your memory of that last paragraph having been added 6 months months later is faulty. Google expressly stated within days of the service rolling out "Google Photos will not use images or videos uploaded onto Google Photos commercially for any promotional purposes, unless we ask for the user's explicit permission". It was added almost immediately as I recall as needed clarification due to all the misinformation circulating about that Google was going to be using your photos for ads and you had no control over it. That was never the case and as circumstantial evidence for that there's never been a single proven instance of them monetizing or marketing a Google Photos uploaded image without express permission from the that photo's owner. And that owner is YOU.
I would suggest that in the interest of truth and accuracy if you believe otherwise you should do two things: First contact Google directly for clarification. Secondly find any instance of Google using one of their users uploaded photos for an ad, or selling it to a 3rd party, or even for promoting Google own services without your express permission, show they are not being honest about it.
Don't take my word for it, go to the source. Otherwise you're not doing readers any favor if what you thought was true is not but you add to the misreporting anyway by just not checking where the truth is. We generally trust what you say and it's not in anyone interest for you not to continue deserving that trust. Verification isn't that hard. You should do it.
You left off the bottom of the quoted paragraph, the part about "standing reminded." Anyway, in the interim and to educate myself more given that I didn't remember the revision clearly, I did talk to both a lawyer and a contact inside Google.
From the former, regardless if Google did or did not use any photos from a user, that initial version of the terms of service absolutely gave Google permission to use contents in advertising without explicit permission from the user. Cue internet drama in 2015.
From the latter, the add-on paragraph about getting explicit permission was added 112 days after the first terms were published. She was unaware if any photos were used for advertising, but I suspect that they weren't. It's great that it appears that they didn't, but in 2015, Google had a passel of attorneys write this, and the omission of the explicit permission part at the time of publication is fairly glaring.
Thanks for checking Mike, as I was sure you would.
So we're now in agreement that Google cannot use your private Google Photo images for marketing and such nor lays claim to ownership of them contrary to what some folks think including some generally well-informed AI members?
Uh, your quibble was over whether it had always been this way. You implied yes, and Mike refuted that. Interesting you feel compelled to rewrite it like he is agreeing with you now. This is likely a disorder.
Nope, no quibble.
AFAIK Google has never laid claim to ownership of a users uploaded Google Photos. It was a misunderstanding of the Google Privacy Policy that led to some folks even today claiming that Google says they own your photos and can use them for anything they see fit. It's not true now and wasn't true then. Google added an additional paragraph to make that eminently clear. Google Photos are private by default and always have been.
This is a clever bit of obfuscation.
There are 2 separate issues related to the terms of service: 1. Copyright Ownership. 2. License to Use.
* The parenthetical phrase, "(and those we work with)," is the only really ambiguous part of the whole license the terms of service grant to Google. Nothing limits the capacity in which Google works with them, so, in effect, Google can transfer the license to anyone they work with to use your photos for promotional purposes.
Why are people assuming Apple won't give anything in return?
I can't find the "blue ribbon" post but Apple will most likely give out one of a kind certificates that are priceless and can jump start careers.
Most contests do this without paying you a penny. Like the person who mentioned a Grammy. You win $0 but a certificate worth more than a million dollars.
The bottom line is: 1) Offering prizes would be a cool thing and Apple can certainly afford it. 2) Not offering any prizes other than bragging rights and exposure is kind of a d!ck move. Let's face it, the majority of folks who will submit entries will be amatuers and will most likely get very little benefit from the exposure their one photo received in an Apple ad. 3) Many companies hold these "contests" designed primarily to generate free marketing and advertising material. It happens all of the time. Such is life.
I agree that Apple should offer a prize of some sort, but I will point out that I’ve yet to encounter a “shot on iPhone” promotional photo that wasn’t credited. Again I agree that’s not enough for a contest, but some commenters have inferred that they also don’t get a credit on that billboard or whatever — and that’s not the case.
Apple announced from the outset that photo winners won’t get prize money or other compensation beyond the personal satisfaction of winning the contest and the publicity that comes with it. All of that makes it an amateur competition. Professional photographers are not coerced into joining this crazy, uncompensated competition.
On a related matter, people who write comments below online articles are providing expertise and insights to publishers without compensation. So perhaps it is time for Appleinsider, the Washington Post and other publishers to start paying for those heretofore free contributions.
If the forums made us money, then we'd consider it. They do not, and they take money and time away from the publication as a whole. Also, we aren't using them for promotional purposes, so your metaphor falls flat.
In reality, the forums do make you money. The comments are why many show up. You also send out notifications concerning subjects the user has posted on returning them to the article, which equals more ad views. If you disabled comments on all articles your site would lose many loyal members. So your comment is not completely true.
99.4 percent of our traffic on a hit basis, not a number of users basis, has no forum presence, nor hit the forums at all. Comments attached to the stories on the homepage don't load unless the user scrolls down enough to see them, or gets close to, which, charitably 99.1 percent of our users don't do. Also, our best estimates suggest that 80% of the forum-goers have ad-blockers on, and it is likely far more than that.
You're welcome to draw your own conclusions from those numbers. But, the only one that can really be logically drawn is that my comment is completely true. Generating money is not the same as turning a profit on the investment, or even breaking even.
Has the site considered ditching the “forums” (which don’t even work correctly on iOS devices, which is whack), and simply implementing comments directly onto the article pages? Ex the Verge, etc... Then every single commenter is hitting your story page, rather than dividing your hits.
Aa far as I can tell, that is under consideration as Vanilla isn't superb. However, I have enough on my plate with content generation as my job to be absolutely sure and I haven't been a coder since >, *, and ].
Another thing you may want to consider is eliminate the forums and replace with Disqus on the story page. Lots of places I visit have done this (that is to say, those that still allow reader feedback. Many sites have dropped comments entirely).
Yeah, you could argue that the photographers are getting great exposure...however I don’t think Apple uses your full name on the billboards, so it’s not like you’ll even get exposure to your instagram feed or website. Apple is a Trillion dollar company for crying out loud. Couldn’t they afford to throw a cash prize to all the winners? $5,000 each would be chump change for them. And i bet the winners would use a lot of that money to buy more Apple products! But to offer no cash prize is pretty cheap. Especially since they Suppossedly value creatives & artists so much. It would really make it more exciting for photographers to enter each year.
Apple’s disrespect for photography professionals was long evident, like when they canned Aperture, but kept FCP, Logic, etc.
If they saw no market, they could have open sourced Aperture, but they rather sell out their customers and force them into nasty subscription “deals” with Adobe.
Thankfully there’s still Affinity, even though they have no decent Aperture replacement, at least I don’t have to waste money on Photoshop...
Given the amount of money spends on ad campaigns $5k for a picture would barely be a rounding error.
How times have changed, I remember when NeXT gave prizes to those who found the most bugs in their beta versions... ...now Apple, wildly profitable, acts as it couldn’t afford to toss some token money to photographers. Sad!
If your name in relation to the contest barely shows up in the posted ads, then what good is it? Apple should at least offer something as noted, iPhone, HomePod, AirPods, something to really encourage people too participate.. Nothing but slim notoriety, not worth it
Comments
The fact that this one doesn't even have a $100 gift card for services is ludicrous.
You guys try to hard to be offended. Precious.
For you sir, AFAIK Google has never laid claim to ownership of a users uploaded Google Photos. Some sources took a misunderstanding of the Google Privacy Policy and ran with it, leading to some folks still today erroneously claiming that Google says they own your photos and can use them for anything they see fit. It's not true now and wasn't true then. Google added an additional paragraph to make that eminently clear (later than I supposed so thanks for reaching out to Google Mike).
Google Photos are private by default and always have been.
I would pay money for my photo to be used in a major Apple ad campaign. I couldn't afford to pay what the exposure would be worth though. It certainly isn't "worthless".
These photos will not generate tons of profits for Apple. Just like Nikon, Sony and Canon ambassadors (and their photos) don't generate a ton of profits for them. They get access to gear and additional exposure in exchange for their reputations as good photogs. The top tier ambassadors get financial sponsorships and free gear. Others just get a discount. The top tier ambassadors are either really great or have really great numbers of followers.
A random contest winner? They get the exposure to help make it to the next level if they want to.
All of this caterwauling over Apple not providing a cash prize for yet another photo contest. Do you all of you great visual artists decrying such "abuse" also heap scorn on Cannes? The winner of the Palme d'Or or the Grand Prix gets $0. They "just" get exposure and prestige. How much do you get when you win an Oscar for cinematography? $0. The statue is worth $10 (the academy has right of first refusal at $10).
While NatGeo offers a very nice Grand Prize (trip for 2 to the Galapagos) and first place ($2500) photos many others provide just exposure and prestige. For those claiming six figures...a Pulitzer winning photo is only $15,000 and a certificate.
If you don't like the value of the contest prize...don't enter. This is a very simple capitalistic evaluation to make. Nobody owes you a living as a photographer or stockbroker or software developer.
There are 2 separate issues related to the terms of service: 1. Copyright Ownership. 2. License to Use.
Mike Wuerthele was absolutely correct in stating that the terms of service he quoted unambiguously give Google a free, worldwide, perpetual, transferable* license to use your intellectual property for certain purposes. The clarification they later added only says that the license you are granting by using the service isn't a transfer of copyright. In point of fact, the "clarification" paragraph doesn't change the original terms of service in any way since the original wording only references a license to use and not copyright transfer. The language is entirely explicit and unambiguous, and any assertions that, "Google does not claim any right to use any uploaded of your Google Photos for promotional purposes or monetization," are entirely and equally unambiguously in error.
The original point was that any photos stored on Google's servers could be used by them, "without your consent and no remuneration." This is not entirely true, since agreeing to the terms of service constitutes consent.
However, the fact that Google has never laid claim to the copyright of uploaded photos (Issue #1), and this is where the obfuscation reaches its peak, is completely irrelevant to whether the terms of service quoted above grant Google a license to use them for promotional purposes (Issue #2), which they unambiguously and explicitly do. The final bit of obfuscation here is the denial that the terms of service gave Google a license to use one's photos for, "anything they see fit." That the terms don't do this is also irrelevant to whether a license for specific purposes is granted by acceptance of the terms of service. And there is absolutely no question that the terms do grant such a free, worldwide, perpetual and transferable* license.
* The parenthetical phrase, "(and those we work with)," is the only really ambiguous part of the whole license the terms of service grant to Google. Nothing limits the capacity in which Google works with them, so, in effect, Google can transfer the license to anyone they work with to use your photos for promotional purposes.
Why are people assuming Apple won't give anything in return?
I can't find the "blue ribbon" post but Apple will most likely give out one of a kind certificates that are priceless and can jump start careers.
Most contests do this without paying you a penny. Like the person who mentioned a Grammy. You win $0 but a certificate worth more than a million dollars.
1) Offering prizes would be a cool thing and Apple can certainly afford it.
2) Not offering any prizes other than bragging rights and exposure is kind of a d!ck move. Let's face it, the majority of folks who will submit entries will be amatuers and will most likely get very little benefit from the exposure their one photo received in an Apple ad.
3) Many companies hold these "contests" designed primarily to generate free marketing and advertising material. It happens all of the time. Such is life.
If they saw no market, they could have open sourced Aperture, but they rather sell out their customers and force them into nasty subscription “deals” with Adobe.
Thankfully there’s still Affinity, even though they have no decent Aperture replacement, at least I don’t have to waste money on Photoshop...
Given the amount of money spends on ad campaigns $5k for a picture would barely be a rounding error.
How times have changed, I remember when NeXT gave prizes to those who found the most bugs in their beta versions...
...now Apple, wildly profitable, acts as it couldn’t afford to toss some token money to photographers. Sad!