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).

 

[Malmuria]

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.

Ok, but let's say you work at dndbeyond and you are in that meeting discussing the contest. How does this potential issue not come up, given that so many other art contests have faced similar backlash? They have a lawyer putting in forethought to draft the terms of agreement, they should have a PR team to think about how something like this might be received.

 

[Greg Benage]

Ok, but let's say you work at dndbeyond and you are in that meeting discussing the contest. How does this potential issue not come up, given that so many other art contests have faced similar backlash? They have a lawyer putting in forethought to draft the terms of agreement, they should have a PR team to think about how something like this might be received.

I'd be fairly surprised if they paid an actual lawyer to look at their contest agreement. I strongly suspect they literally downloaded it. And while they may have a "PR team," they'd have to be pretty damn good to anticipate every potential firestorm this community may be inclined to whip up. Last week (literally) it was WotC "whitewashing" artwork. This week it's something completely different. It's gotta be a lot for the 36K/year "PR/Marketing/Comms" person to keep up with.

 

[Vaalingrade]

They’re wrong

There is a position somewhere between… any competition rules are fair game (let the entrant beware) and the opposing view that all competitions are exploitative (those school creative writing competitions were child labor.)

Like, for example 'competitions are fine unless they try to pull crap like retain the rights to all entries with no actual compensation'?

You know, the position basically everyone you're disagreeing with are holding?

 

[MGibster]

But that isn't how it works.* Again, if people don't want to have fan contests ... that's cool. Just say that.

I don't want it if I think it's a lopsided deal. The only part I have a problem with is that DDB expects to retain the right to use the images for their website in perpetuity.

Look, I'll give you an easy-to-understand example. There was a tradition of "lady's nights" at bars. Usually on slow nights (like Mondays or Tuesday), they would offer discounted drinks to women, as it would bring in more women, and thus, more men.

I don't see how this is at all related to the subject at hand. The bars and ballpark were sued because the Unrah Civil Rights Act prohibits businesses in California from linking pricing to race, religion, and a myriad of other protected categories. I don't see any connection to the subject of this thread.

So, sure. People don't want this fan contest. But the concept is generally applicable to all fan contests- and companies are risk averse If people want to get rid of all fan contests because they think that it's just like wage theft and child labor, then more power to them. But that's what the argument really is.

I'm fine with getting rid of them then. Let those companies find some other way to market I guess.

 

[MGibster]

I stand corrected. Lets face it, everyone drinks in the parking lot for the opening act. Only opening act I ever saw that was worth a damn was Alice In Chains for Facelift on the Clash of the Titans Tour. Ironically we drank underneath the Skyway when they opened up for Van Halen '92ish for their Dirt tour. They were extremely popular at the time and to this day I scratch my head asking why we didn't go in to see them. Life's funny that way.

I don't think they were just the opening act. Palmer was "hiring" brass instruments I believe as accompaniment to some of her own performances.

 

[R_J_K75]

I don't think they were just the opening act. Palmer was "hiring" brass instruments I believe as accompaniment to some of her own performances.

That definitely makes a difference Id think. If youre looking to hire a brass ensemble, traditionally thats more "rigid" and takes practice to just go from town to town. AFAIK thats a more structured form of music so it stands youre hiring professionals that can sight read, etc.

 

[TheSword]

Like, for example 'competitions are fine unless they try to pull crap like retain the rights to all entries with no actual compensation'?

You know, the position basically everyone you're disagreeing with are holding?

I think there’s no functional difference between companies not having the rights, and having the rights to protect themself and choosing not to use them to profit.

 

[Xetheral]

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

We don't know their original intent, and even if the original intent was not nefarious, we (and even current employees/management at DDB) can't know whether DDB (or any future acquiring company or bankruptcy trustee) would stick to that original intent. All we know for sure is that DDB ran a contest with terms that allowed it to, at any point in the future, unilaterally exploit the artists who submitted non-winning entries by using its licenses to the submitted work for commercial gain without compensation to the artists.

And that's on top of the separate issue where a contest format where the organizer retains usage rights distorts the paid market for that type of art. Even if only the winning entries are used and the prizes are suitable compensation for the winners (unlikely in this case, since the prizes were non-resaleable digital licenses on which the winner would owe taxes, causing the winners to lose cash flow), such contests shift the art market away from commissions/employment and towards spec work, which is structurally disadvantageous for the artists.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I think there’s no functional difference between companies not having the rights, and having the rights to protect themself and choosing not to use them to profit.

And I think there's no difference between an elephant and a mayfly. That does not make me right.

 

[Faolyn]

I don't joke, and the fact that people are selling (or listing for sale) token frames has nothing to do with my point. Is anyone selling exclusive rights to token frames to any company out there? If not, then no one is actually encumbering their rights by entering this contest, because no one was going to be selling exclusive rights to token frames anyway.

(Perfectly legit if someone doesn't want to grant any rights in their work to DDB just to enter the contest, of course.)

Except if by submitting your art to DBB, you couldn't also then choose to sell it elsewhere because it was owned by DBB. Which may have been the case here.