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).

 

[Lanefan]

Sounds like they exploited a competition and should be called out by name for it.

Not sure it means competitions that aren’t exploitative should be called out. Though according to a few poster competitions are by nature exploitative. Even my year 5 poetry competition.

If the IP rights for non-winning entries revert entirely to the entrant then it's not exploitation.

If the IP rights stay with the contest-runner who can then do whatever with it, it's (potentially) explotiative all day long.

 

[TheSword]

Let's run with this for a moment. You put on a design-a-monster contest and get, say, 10,000 entries, of which 98% are absolutely hopeless and half the rest are borderline.

That still gives you 100 useable monsters for your Monster Manual; 200 if you can make anything out of the borderline ones which - as you now co-own the rights to them - you're free to do by tweaking them or cleaning them up or whatever.

Boom. Fan-created Monster Manual, likely at considerably less overall cost to you than had it all been done in-house, and with a built-in buyer base it wouldn't have otherwise had (this the marketing piece referred to below).

So this amazing method of creating work for free must be common right if it’s so easy, cheap and leads to such quality.

Please Lanefan point me in the direction of these amazing crowd-sourced monster manuals so I can send my money towards what must obviously be a quality product. Any link will do, or even a name so I can find it myself to buy.

 

[TheSword]

If the IP rights for non-winning entries revert entirely to the entrant then it's not exploitation.

If the IP rights stay with the contest-runner who can then do whatever with it, it's (potentially) explotiative all day long.

Even if the company bins the entries after use or never looks at them again? It’s still exploitative unless there is a specific cause in the contract preventing this? Get out of it.

It has already been explained time over why rights clauses exist even if there is no intent to use. Even if they do use, they can still pay at that point as Morrus expects.

 

[Arilyn]

@Hussar can (and doubtless will!) speak for himself here; but for my part the problem isn't the competition/contest in itself, it's what becomes of the non-winning entries afterward.

If, for non-winning entries, all rights revert to the creator after the contest and the entry is returned or (if digital-only) shown to have been deleted/destroyed then everything's gold.

Exactly this! Have all the contests you want, just don't hang on to rights with zero compensation. Pretty straight forward.

 

[R_J_K75]

So this amazing method of creating work for free must be common right if it’s so easy, cheap and leads to such quality.

Please Lanefan point me in the direction of these amazing crowd-sourced monster manuals so I can send my money towards what must obviously be a quality product. Any link will do, or even a name so I can find it myself to buy.

Why Im leary to buy off DMs Guild.

 

[Lanefan]

Reminder: Token frames. We're talking about token frames. Is there a graphic designer out there selling exclusive rights to token frames? Actually, if a company's contract demands exclusive rights to your token frames, you should just redline and send that back.

Indeed, the specific contest under discussion is a (relative) triviality.

The underlying principle, however, of creatives being expected to give away the rights to their IP for nothing is anything but trivial.

 

[Lanefan]

So this amazing method of creating work for free must be common right if it’s so easy, cheap and leads to such quality.

Please Lanefan point me in the direction of these amazing crowd-sourced monster manuals so I can send my money towards what must obviously be a quality product. Any link will do, or even a name so I can find it myself to buy.

Sorry, but asking for a real-world version of a hypothetical example isn't going to get you far.

Closest I can get you from personal experience is this: for many years there have been poetry "contests", usually advertised in the back classifieds of various magazines, where if you send in a poetic work - along with a "processing fee" - you could see it published if it's any good. It'd be a full-on scam, except I've seen (and held in my hands) at least one example of where a book of these poems did in fact get printed and released, thus making it only a partial scam.

 

[Greg Benage]

Indeed, the specific contest under discussion is a (relative) triviality.

The underlying principle, however, of creatives being expected to give away the rights to their IP for nothing is anything but trivial.

It's the tendency of so many online communities to immediately escalate to "underlying principle" on every single little thing that I object to. Can we admit some nuance? Can we exercise some judgment? Does every trivial (or manufactured) controversy have to be transformed into a battle between Good and Evil?

DDB was not engaging in some nefarious scheme to monopolize the market on token frames at the expense of unsuspecting creatives. They were trying to run a contest to drive fan engagement. Maybe they could have opted not to use the standard contest boilerplate they downloaded from LegalZoom, but the hashtivists could have also taken a breath and chosen not to ignite yet another "backlash" over it, too.

 

[Lanefan]

It's the tendency of so many online communities to immediately escalate to "underlying principle" on every single little thing that I object to. Can we admit some nuance?

Hey, I'm not usually much of a "hashtivist" but as a mediocre musician and maybe-a-bit-better wordsmith who lives with a pretty good artist this underlying principle hits mighty close to home.

DDB was not engaging in some nefarious scheme to monopolize the market on token frames at the expense of unsuspecting creatives.

That we know of; and the race is on to write this as an adventure plot to upload to DDB!

They were trying to run a contest to drive fan engagement. Maybe they could have opted not to use the standard contest boilerplate they downloaded from LegalZoom, but the hashtivists could have also taken a breath and chosen not to ignite yet another "backlash" over it, too.

Sometimes the trivial (a token-ring fan contest) is a good venue for pointing out the serious (IP exploitation). DDB just happened to put itself in the crosshairs this time, and - IMO wisely - chose to back out of the firing line.

 

[DemoMonkey]

That's a great example.

You know what I did? Because I wasn't willing to accept the terms, I didn't read the Spoiler.