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).

 

[Sacrosanct]

I read the thread title and had a totally different assumption about the topic. More...mob like lol, and I had questions.

 

[Dioltach]

From DDB's second quote:

a contest to create art where only some entrants would receive a prize

I'm confused. Isn't this what a contest is all about?

 

[Xohar17]

I'm confused. Isn't this what a contest is all about?

I think the issue was that even if you dont win anything they would be free to use your artz free of charge.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I'm confused. Isn't this what a contest is all about?

I think it's different when it comes to art, especially digital art.

If you are in a pie baking contest, and your pie doesn't win, that's it. Sure you don't get your pie back, but you can keep painting that pie yourself.

In this kind of contest, if you don't win, the company gets to keep using your digital art for free. That would be like them selling copies of that pie you baked, and you get none of the profit.

This is especially impactful because many of the people who produce digital art are independently employed and trying to make a living off of it. So when a company created this kind of contest, they are essentially poaching art instead of actually hiring artists. It also means they won't have to hire artists to produce all the free art they just got.

It's icky.

Which is why there was feedback, and why DDB canceled the contest.

 

[DemoMonkey]

Why is it "icky" if it's voluntary? If you don't want to sign the rights to that particular piece away ... don't enter the contest?

Am I missing a nuance here?

 

[BookTenTiger]

Am I missing a nuance here?

Yep!

 

[Maxperson]

This is about people ruining something for others. If you don't like the contest, the solution was not to enter it. Those that were entering it were fine with the prizes or else they wouldn't have entered. Not all contests are for all people.

 

[Norton]

Cheers for the explanations. For the life of me I couldn't glean the dirty details from what I'd read.

I imagine they could have offered some form of credit and promotion for the non-winning art they selected every time they used it, as well as notifying the artist where and when it would be published. Seems it'd be worth the value in advertising, but I'm not in that game so maybe not.

I have a website that sells a product for gaming coming soon and I had considered running contests for artists to submit their creature designs. The winner gets their design reproduced in several ways, they get paid something, they get blog featured with traffic driven by social media marketing, and they get permanent website credit. Never occurred to me to use the ones I didn't choose but every artist I've contacted was happy to contribute work if I asked them nicely and promised to credit them.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think the nuance (from what I gather) is that if you are running a contest in order to showcase new artists... you shouldn't hang on to the art of the artists you don't showcase unless you agree to pay them for it.

If you win or place in the contest are are awarded (or "paid") for the work you did... great! It worked as intended. But if you didn't win, you shouldn't have to lose your art. At the very least D&D Beyond should say in their rules that if any losing art is still property of D&D Beyond, they will not use or display said art. Because if you don't use it, you don't necessarily have to "pay" for it. But if you ARE going to use it in some form or fashion down the line... the artist should be rewarded or paid for it.