'AITA for not letting a family member enter pictures I took into a contest under their name?' UPDATED
"AITAH for not letting a family member enter pictures I took into a contest under their name?"
Recently there was a regional photo contest near my area, however I wasn’t a part of the community that put it on and therefore wasn’t eligible to enter. I was completely okay with this as I like to enter other photo contests in my communities but I digress.
I have a family member in that community who asked (repeatedly) to enter a couple of my pictures from Grand Tetons National Park into the contest under her name so it would be eligible for prizes.
I refused because I didn’t know the terms of the contest and whether or not the picture became their IP when entered so I couldn’t use it in my own contest. The rest of my family seems to think I’m selfish and that I have dozens of pictures good enough for these contests, and that this family member is just trying to be helpful by putting my photos in more contests.
Plus, I don’t know what it is, I can’t stand the idea of someone else’s name of my work. I think I might be TA because I could just let her enter these pictures take pride in them secretly if they do well, but I’m refusing. AITA?
The commenters had a lot to say in response.
freerange_chicken wrote:
NTA. It’s your work, not theirs. They’re not trying to be helpful, they’re trying to pass off your work as their own. If you’re trying to get your photography out there, you certainly don’t want to let them take your work. In the worst case scenario (which, idk how likely but just a thought) it somehow gets around that this happened, it could end up with your entries in other places being called into question.
OP responded:
Oh man I hadn’t thought of that.
DJ_Too_Supreme_AITA wrote:
NTA.
I see this as similar to someone wanting to copy a college essay and use it as their own, this is called plagiarism. People get in serious trouble for plagiarizing work.
OP responded:
That’s what I said but my entire family seems to think plagiarism only applies to written work.
OkeyDokey654 wrote:
NTA. How on earth is that supposed to be helpful to you?
OP responded:
Silent Pride if it does well I guess.
Rackoftheyear wrote:
NTA. Plagiarism is no joke and it's not selfish to want to own your own work. I've had my songs stolen before and now I copyright every single one. It's not selfish to want YOUR work to have YOUR name on it.
Two months later, OP shared an update.
In case no one read the original here's a TLDR: I had a family member who wanted to enter the photos I took of the Grand Teton's into a local photo contest because I didn't qualify. I don't want to do it and my family thought I was TA.
Here's the update. So I took the advisce of a lot of the commentors and told my family I wouldn't allow anyone else to enter my pictures under their name, then made sure my family member didn't enter my photos without my permission by attending the contest and threatening to report them if they tried.
I've also taken to not sending around any of my pictures without a watermark. I used some of the arguments given in the comments to justify my decision, and while my family still didn't agree, they let it go and stopped pressuring me to send them all the original pictures. I know some people suggested I tell the contest organizers, but I didn't think it was worth going that far. Man, I probably should have.
So, more recently one of my aunts also got into photography and sent around a lot of pictures she took on a vacation to New Orleans. Well, my plagiarizing family member took them and entered them into a contest in the local paper (small town) under her own name and won. The picture was featured in the paper and referenced only her as the photographer along with a quote by her.
I don't think the rest of us would have even found out about it if my uncle didn't like to read the paper everyday. Now my aunt is angry and so is the rest of the family. I am kind of curious if they would have reacted this strongly for me, but it doesn't really matter. At least now my family understands why I reacted as strongly as I did.
EDIT: for everyone saying I should report her to the paper, I would if I thought it would make a difference. Sadly, my family member’s boyfriend is the biggest sponsor for the local paper so I don’t think they’d risk losing his funding.
The internet did not hold back one bit.
LawyerDad1981 wrote:
Oh and I'm sure the plagiarizing family member gave every bit of the prize to your aunt. Right? Right?
At any rate, congratulations on still having a hometown newspaper. That's something.
DangerousLettuce1423 wrote:
I'd be petty and let the organisers know who really took the photo (anonymously or not), so they could award the prize to your aunt, or whoever came 2nd, and get them to also publicise in the paper why family member no longer came 1st.
lilitu9tails wrote:
Contact the organisers and tell them she won using work that is not hers. Why should she profit off someone else’s talent.
orpheusoxide wrote:
"Now my aunt is angry and so is the rest of the family. I am kind of curious if they would have reacted this strongly for me, but it doesn't really matter. At least now my family understands why I reacted as strongly as I did."
Personally I'd want to know the answer just so I know how to view these people in this situation. "Why are you all upset? You were fine when she was going to do this to me, even insulting me when I said no. Now that it's happened to my aunt, everyone has switched opinions? Why?"
Any response of "it's different" or "stop bringing up old stuff" would let me know who is full of it and who to keep at arms length down the road.
eightmarshmallows wrote:
This is also a copyright issue. Your family member probably signed something giving the newspaper permission to publish the photo as well as affirming said family member’s ownership of the image.
Your aunt is the owner, and if she doesn’t contest this she may have issues later if she enters or publishes the photo elsewhere, specifically if there is a clause embargoing or preventing future publication elsewhere. There could also have been a clause transferring ownership of the image to the newspaper. You have no idea what was signed.