Apple to Pay Licensing Fees to 'Shot on iPhone' Contest Winners After Artist Complaints

Apple is planning to pay the photographers who win its "Shot on iPhone" photography contest, the company announced today in an updated press release.

Apple clarified its position on payment for the photographs following multiple complaints from artists that were highlighted earlier today by The Verge.

iphonexsrearcamera
The "Shot on iPhone" contest was first announced on Tuesday, and at the time, Apple appeared to be offering no compensation to the photographers. Winners would be paid in exposure, with Apple planning to display winning photographs on social media and on billboards.

Photographers were understandably upset at a company the size of Apple asking for artistic work sans compensation.


Apple now says that all photographers who win the contest will receive an unspecified licensing fee for the use of their photos on billboards and other marketing channels. It was not previously clear if Apple had intended to pay licensing fees, as the prior language released by the company did not mention it.

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.

The updated information is available in the press release announcing the contest and the PDF with the official rules.

Apple's "Shot on ‌iPhone‌" contest kicked off on January 22 and will run through February 7 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time. The contest will be judged by both professional photographers and a selection of Apple employees with photography expertise.

Top Rated Comments

480951 Avatar
69 months ago
Oh good grief. How ridiculous. All because a handful of pro photographers whined on Twitter.
People should be paid for their work. Apple is obscenely wealthy, I think they'll be okay. They could give each of the 10 winners $1 million each and it would be absolutely nothing to them. People defending this nearly trillion dollar company are gross.
Score: 86 Votes (Like | Disagree)
LinusR Avatar
69 months ago
No photographer was forced to enter the competition -- professional, amateur, or otherwise. Complaining about the T&C's after submitting their photos is borderline ridiculous.
Score: 40 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Rogifan Avatar
69 months ago
Oh good grief. How ridiculous. All because a handful of pro photographers whined on Twitter.
Score: 39 Votes (Like | Disagree)
brofkand Avatar
69 months ago
The next slogan should be: "Customers who have a bent iPad should are encouraged to contact AppleCare"
[doublepost=1548382319][/doublepost]
Oh good grief. How ridiculous. All because a handful of pro photographers whined on Twitter.
You can't buy food with a medal or happy thoughts, takes money for that. I don't work for free, do you?
Score: 37 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TheShadowKnows! Avatar
69 months ago
This isn’t work.
Maybe not to you, but it is copyright.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Stevez67 Avatar
69 months ago
Why not just reduce the contest to amateur only? If the alleged pros were as good and deserving of compensation as they claim, they should be too busy for contests like this.
Score: 29 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
iPad And Calculator App Feature

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
iOS 17 All New Features Thumb

iOS 17.5 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Sunday April 21, 2024 3:00 am PDT by
The upcoming iOS 17.5 update for the iPhone includes only a few new user-facing features, but hidden code changes reveal some additional possibilities. Below, we have recapped everything new in the iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 beta so far. Web Distribution Starting with the second beta of iOS 17.5, eligible developers are able to distribute their iOS apps to iPhone users located in the EU...