Apple wants you to send your best iPhone photos in return for, cough, exposure

Apple wants your best iPhone shots, but it won't pay you if it ends up using them.

On Tuesday, the company announced a photo contest that asks iPhone users to "submit their best shots."

"The winning photos will be featured on billboards in select cities, Apple retail stores and online," the company said in a blog post. Unfortunately, there's no mention of any monetary compensation.

The contest, which goes on from Jan. 22 to Feb. 7, accepts anyone over 18 (except Apple employees and their immediate families) and looks for outstanding photos shot exclusively on the iPhone. A panel of 11 judges, which includes Apple's Phil Schiller and former official White House photographer Pete Souza, will determine the 10 winning photos. The winners will be announced in February.

Tim Cook announced the contest on Twitter as well.

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If you're interested in participating, you should know that you'll essentially be giving Apple the rights to your photo for free. The fine print makes it clear that Apple gets the rights to use the photos as it pleases, including for commercial purposes (in some cases).

"You retain your rights to your photograph; however, by submitting your photo, you grant Apple a royalty-free, world-wide, irrevocable, non-exclusive license for one year to use, modify, publish, display, distribute, create derivative works from and reproduce the photo on Apple Newsroom, apple.com, Apple Twitter accounts, Apple Instagram (@Apple), in Apple retail stores, Apple Weibo, Apple WeChat, on billboards and any Apple internal exhibitions. Any photograph reproduced will include a photographer credit. If your photo is selected to be featured on a billboard, you further agree to grant Apple exclusive commercial use of the photo for the life of the license," the post reads.

Furthermore, in the official rules of the contest, Apple clearly states that the "prize has no cash value," and forbids "substitutions or cash redemptions."

Obviously getting this type of exposure is nice, but it's also been a frequent complaint among photographers and artists, who are often offered exposure instead of getting paid. If Apple is planning to use the photos for commercial purposes, why not compensate the authors with cash?

While some people started submitting their photos right away, some photographers voiced their displeasure about the prospect of having a company such as Apple using their work without monetary compensation.

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Mashable has reached out to Apple to find out about the reasoning behind the decision not to compensate the winners with any kind of monetary award. We will update this post when we hear from them.