photography contest - legal issues?

Hiya! I'm about to enter a photo contest, a grand prize of which is $2000.

According to the entry form, they reserve the right to use any photo in their publications. But they did NOT say that copyright of the photo becomes theirs.

If I do win, they *might* request I give them the negative. (Which is interesting, they claim any type of photo can win and my best pics just happen to be DIGITAL! No film to give them. It's either badly written on their part or they don't expect any digital pics to be that good or they don't want digital photos to win because you can't easily dupe a negative?!)

Let's say I give them my three best pics. I don't win. They use them in a catalogue. Will that detract from any potential clients who'd want a print of the same image for themselves? A chance at $2000 is nice, but I don't want to eliminate the possibility of losing potential customers, thinking I'd nicked it, in the process! My better pics stand a chance of getting $100 per 13x19" print.

Also, if they did put a copyright symbol next to the pic with their name on it, then do I have a case? (they probably won't, I've never seen them put in the logo in the past...)

you would be better off making a website where you can sell your prints yourself.

Perhaps they won't consider them, pehaps it didn't occur to them. Any type of photo means any type of photo. (submit a leaf-photo if you really want to make their puzzlers hurt-)
www.grand-illusions.com/roman.htm
Sound like they want to acquire "limited use" rights (as in promotion of their group, or event) You may need to clarify their intent of use.
All rights remain yours until you give/sell to them. If they don't request copywrite, they can't have it.

Digital file or print should be fine. Easier to deal with than a negative anyway.

Why would a contest submission hurt the buying potential of an image?
Thats the idea isn't it? To get more eyeballs on your picture?
Seems like the contest would only help.

Good luck HypnoToad!

There are several Ritz camera locations that I know of.

Most of my clients would be local unless I really advertise my upcoming website, and even then Ritz Camera (and Wolf Camera and every other entity that the parent company owns) have chains and stores all across America and wouldn't advertise me as the creator; they'd use it as if it were their pic. :-(

If they see the Ritz catalogues, they'd naturally assume the photo belonged to Ritz and I'm trying to pawn it off as my own. (it's a silly idea but people in American culture aren't going to take the time for me to explain how they'd be wrong in their belief that I nicked someone else's photo!)

I am being arrogant though and am assuming they would use my pics above the others. It's just as possible that top-rated scenic pictures mean nothing to them... :D

I find it surprising that they wouldn't execpet a high resolution digital file. It could be that they are not interested in images that may have been highly enhanced and a negative or transparency is the only way to tell if that is not the case. Possibly they are interested in film for this competition. I'm sure there is some way to clarify this. The right to use your image is probably for limited promotional use in their publication and you would still own the copyright. All magazines require this for their contests and submissions. What type of photography do you do. If you have time to take a look, my site is bradfuscoimages.com. Exscuse the scans, it was before I had a handle on my film scanner and I haven't had much time to work on the site.