Luc Latulippe

Thanks Luc,

I SO agree with your comments and I’ve added you to the NO!SPEC supporters blogroll.

cat
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Thanks Cat! I don’t think enough can be said of stuff like this. Hopefully the buzz generated online will help them change their minds. I’m going to write the BNL an email too. Nothing angry and nasty, but definitely something polite yet firm to point out how screwed up “contests” like this are.

Yikes! quel disappointing. it’s hard enough to learn not to devalue your own time and work. keep us posted if there are any replies to your BNL email.

I am so thankful someone has posted my feelings exactly! I won a contest sponsored by the group’s fan club (Dress Your Pet Like A Barenaked Ladie) and got to meet them. I have to say it was probably one of the most disappointing experiences of my entire life. The band barely spoke to me; when I showed them a copy of my winning photo and told them about the contest, they didn’t say a WORD! It was devastating to me to meet the band I’d fallen in love with and to basically blow me off. As I said, they barely spoke to me, and made me feel that they would rather have been anywhere else than having to do a meet and greet. And even if they were in a bad mood (I felt some really bad vibes when I was ushered in to see them) I think they should have at least thanked me for entering the contest and coming to the show. But they acted like they couldn’t be bothered. Maybe I interrupted their supper or something.

Anyway, I read the rules of the contest and thought, “how nice, BNL is too damn cheap to hire a design company to come up with t shirts, but have asked thousands of their fans to submit ideas (and I’ve been to deviant art, there are some cool designs up) so the group never has to think about t-shirt design again.” What’s more, is they own the designs forever, and you can’t use it in your portfolio, or to promote yourself. Winning a contest on this level would be exciting for anyone, regardless of their previous success, but to only get $1000 worth of merchandise and no public acknowledgment of their design really does suck.

I thought about entering this contest, but having read this post and the responses, I think I won’t. Not that I’d win or anything, but to have them own the picture that I would send in would just kill me.

I don’t know how other fans feel about this contest, but I’m glad someone has said what I feel.

As a result of my meet and greet, my enthusiasm for the group has really fallen off. With this contest, I think it’s been forever destroyed. To be perfectly honest, I think if I’d never met them, I’d still be a fan. And as for this contest…as a struggling writer and photographer, I know what it’s like to do spec work and not get any recognition or benefit from it.

I think BNL thinks this contest is a way to keep their fans involved with them, as I’ve heard from other fans that they seem to be more respectful and grateful to their fans in contrast to other groups, but somehow, I think they know this is a way to get good art for free.

My picture got exposure on the fan club website, but I think I wasn’t even identified by name, even though I gave my permission. I was identified as: “fan whatever my fan club number” was.

And to have the band I loved not comment on the picture I worked so hard to get? Devastating. Depressing. Crushing.

Thanks for sharing your experiences with us Gloria. You make very good points regarding how disrespectfully such contests treat not only the winner, but all entrants.

While you’re right, the band could have been having a really bad day, there seems to be no excuse to treating you so poorly, particularly when you were invited there as a winner in one of their contests.

But your personal experience with the band aside, you prove the point that once a winner is chosen in contests such as these, little or no care is taken to acknowledge the winner’s contributions, or even to treat her or him with any respect, professional or otherwise.

You also reminded us that the winner does not even win a cash prize of $1000, but rather the equivalent value in band merchandise! Horrible!

Oh, and then there’s the skill-testing question the winner has to answer. I kid you not:

“Before being declared a winner of any prize, the Selected Entrants, if a Canadian resident, must have correctly answered a mathematical skill-testing question posed during a telephone interview or in person, without mechanical or other assistance.”

So, if you “win,” you get a $1000 pile of “merchandise” (perfect for paying the rent with), you’re stripped of your Moral Rights to your own work, AND you have to answer a ridiculous “skill-testing question.” But only if you’re Canadian.

I’m sorry, but the words “Grand Prize Winner” is NOT the first term that jumps to mind.

Thanks Luc. I am not a professional designer, but I do have an avid interest in photography, and wanted to meet the band, so I decided to go for it. I really do wish I hadn’t done it. I’m positive if I hadn’t met them that night, I would still be a fan today. Maybe they were having a bad day, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me to meet them, and THEY should have realized that. It still really bothers me and I don’t know why. I know I need to get over it, but yeah, to enter a contest and be invited to meet them and to have them barely talk to me and say NOTHING about my winning entry (I explained to them about the contest) really devastated me.

For them to have these rules for the contest is just crap, I think. I mean, everyone who is creative wants to have feedback about their work, particularly if the work wins a contest. As it is our own idea, we want some control, or if we are giving up rights, we better damn well be compensated. And I doubt, if the tables were turned, if BNL was just another one of thousands of music groups out there that they would enter a songwriting contest sponsored by their favorite group, knowing that the second they send their entry, they would lose it and wouldn’t ever be able to perform it again. I think not. And yet, they have these unfair rules. And what’s up with the Canadian winner’s skill question?

Anyway, I hope you do get a response from the letter you sent to them. I politely asked if they were not feeling well the night I met them and got no response. If you think it will help, I would be willing to send an email as well pointing out the unfairness of this contest.

Luc, I’ve posted my feelings on the BNL t-shirt thing at:
http://angryphotog.deviantart.com/

The Canadian skills question is a part of any give away in Canada, and not exclusive to this question:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skill_testing_question