D&D 5E D&D Beyond Cancels Competition

D&D Beyond has been running an art contest which asked creators to enter D&D-themed portrait frame. DDB got to use any or all of the entries, while the winner and some runners up received some digital content as a prize.

There was a backlash -- and DDB has cancelled the contest.

Thank you to all of our community for sharing your comments and concerns regarding our anniversary Frame Design Contest.

While we wanted to celebrate fan art as a part of our upcoming anniversary, it's clear that our community disagrees with the way we approached it. We've heard your feedback, and will be pulling the contest.

We will also strive to do better as we continue to look for ways to showcase the passion and creativity of our fellow D&D players and fans in the future. Our team will be taking this as a learning moment, and as encouragement to further educate ourselves in this pursuit.

Your feedback is absolutely instrumental to us, and we are always happy to listen and grow in response to our community's needs and concerns. Thank you all again for giving us the opportunity to review this event, and take the appropriate action.

The company went on to say:

Members of our community raised concerns about the contest’s impact on artists and designers, and the implications of running a contest to create art where only some entrants would receive a prize, and that the prize was exclusively digital material on D&D Beyond. Issues were similarly raised with regards to the contest terms and conditions. Though the entrants would all retain ownership of their design to use in any way they saw fit, including selling, printing, or reproducing, it also granted D&D Beyond rights to use submitted designs in the future. We have listened to these concerns, and in response closed the competition. We’ll be looking at ways we can better uplift our community, while also doing fun community events, in the future.

Competitions where the company in question acquires rights to all entries are generally frowned upon (unless you're WotC).

 

[BookTenTiger]

Nothing predatory about it. People can willingly enter or not. It's a choice on whether the prize and the credit of having your work used is worth it or not. DDB caved in to people shouting about something they don't understand and ruined it for others.

"It's predatory behavior that DDB recognized. You can read their own statement as a counterargument."

Or, they recognized that the random wrath of the internet had been directed at them today and backpedaling was better PR than standing their ground, regardless of whether they were right or not.

No way to know which explanation is true. But which seems more likely, that a "predator" had a genuine change of heart or that they decide to spin it?

I mean, sure, there are a few ways to interpret this based on the information we have.

Either way, DDB was attempting to create a contest for their community. They received negative feedback from their community about the contest, especially the way that the majority of entries would lose ownership of their art. They pulled the contest.

You can see bogeymen bullies in that, or you can see it as part of a trend of digital artists resisting contests that require them to lose ownership of their art.

Some useful links if you want more perspectives:

ArtistryFound.com

MakingArtMakingMoney.com

Portland.AIGI.org

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Also: spec work is just a half step up from the dreaded "being paid in exposure". It's a dick move. Pay your artists, and make it clear up front what you'll be paying them.

 

[BookTenTiger]

And in doing so ruined it for the artists who DID want to enter. They whined about it not being what THEY wanted and ruined it for others who were okay with it. Again, not all contests are for all people. You aren't owed the existence of a contest prize that you are willing to accept.

Who is THEY?

All we know is there was "feedback from the community" not bullying, whining, protesting, etc etc etc.

 

[Maxperson]

As a general rule, if the choice is between allowing artists to keep ownership of their work and not allowing that, I'll support the option that allows artists to keep ownership of their work every time.

It's not your choice, though. If a company is up front and says, "This is what is happening. Here are the prizes," then it's not predatory in any way. You get to make an informed choice about whether to enter or not, and if you do enter, it's because you have deemed the prizes offer as being worth the entry.

Do I think it's better to let them keep their work? Yes. That doesn't mean that I should shout down contests where they don't. Those contests will simply get less artists to enter than one where they can keep ownership of their art.

In this case, they DID get to keep ownership.

"Though the entrants would all retain ownership of their design to use in any way they saw fit, including selling, printing, or reproducing, it also granted D&D Beyond rights to use submitted designs in the future."

 

[Rikka66]

This kind of thing happens fairly often. And it normally ends with the contests being cancelled. So I don't have sympathy for the twentieth company to fall into the same hole.

 

[Sacrosanct]

It's predatory behavior that DDB recognized. You can read their own statement as a counterargument.

Nah, it's not predatory. The terms are pretty up front, and this is common practice among contests like this for as long as I remember. It's an unscrupulous way of doing it (in my opinion), but it's not predatory. The right thing to do is pay all the artists if you use their work, whether they won or not.

DDB just did an industry standard contest, but realized for whatever reason you want to guess (they are decent people who saw the flaw, they didn't want the PR regardless of their own morals, etc) that it wasn't the way to go.

Unscrupulous /= predatory.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

It's not your choice, though. If a company is up front and says, "This is what is happening. Here are the prizes," then it's not predatory in any way. You get to make an informed choice about whether to enter or not, and if you do enter, it's because you have deemed the prizes offer as being worth the entry.

In this case, the prizes were nowhere worth the time and labour required of an entry. Otherwise, I simply just flat out disagree. This entire method of sourcing artwork (or in other cases, written work) from the community is predatory in and of itself.

Well, the contest was cancelled anyhow, and I wonder how many submissions DNDBeyond actually got before it was shuttered. Good to hear that most people know the value of their own work.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Nah, it's not predatory. The terms are pretty up front, and this is common practice among contests like this for as long as I remember. It's an unscrupulous way of doing it (in my opinion), but it's not predatory. The right thing to do is pay all the artists if you use their work, whether they won or not.

DDB just did an industry standard contest, but realized for whatever reason you want to guess (they are decent people who saw the flaw, they didn't want the PR regardless of their own morals, etc) that it wasn't the way to go.

Unscrupulous /= predatory.

Your mistake was in assuming that the industry standard isn't in and of itself predatory. But that's capitalism for you.

 

[Mistwell]

The thing about WOTC claiming to retain the rights to that artwork once submitted is...they have never in the history of the company USED the work of those who don't win the contest. And they never would use it. They never even look at it again, beyond that contest.

The reason they claim that right is so that, if some day their own artists happen to create something similar to something you submitted one time, you cannot sue them over that.

That's why it's done this way. Not so they can swipe your stuff without paying for it - but so they have a solid defense against anyone in the future suing them for creating something very similar to what was submitted in a contest. Because even if that similar thing is created purely by coincidence, people will sue over it if they had submitted something similar before.

This is also why you don't submit surprise scripts in Hollywood and have to go through some sort of agency go-between. So that the ability to avoid a future lawsuit over creating something similar is avoided.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Morality changes over time. And the morality of taking or using a person's artistic expression without compensating that person when you yourself will gain compensation for its use is no longer being seen as acceptable.

You might want to call it "whining"... but that's what EVERY change in a society's morals comes from. People demanding a change in the status quo.