99Designs and CrowdSPRING are just two of many holding illegal lotteries across state lines with no fair (or set) rules, giving preferential treatment to their favored designers, violating labor laws, copyright laws, and taking away artists’/creators’ rights. This growing trend has severely and negatively impacted our nations’ economy, and these places need to be shut down before they put our country into another Great Depression.

Although 99Designs is an Australian-based company, they are hosted right here in the US, and they are also conducting business right here in the US, therefore they must comply with US laws. Allow me to elaborate on this, and also to educate you in some basics of copyright law in the USA…

What 99Designs is doing is not only illegal in the USA, it is highly unethical as well. First of all, they state that, “After the prize is paid in full, the ownership lies with the contest holder which is royalty-free and irrevocable.”, which is absolutely LUDICROUS! There are only nine categories (as enumerated clearly in copyright law) by which works can even be considered eligible to be work-for-hire. These “contests” (and again, I say this loosely, since they do not have a proper judging panel, proper contest rules, nor proper “alternate means of entry”, which every real contest must have in order to even be legal in this country) clearly fall into NONE of these nine categories, so what this company is really doing here is ripping off young designers fresh out of school who are too green to know their rights. They are simply skirting both labor and copyright laws, and attempting to steal intellectual property from others.

Slavery was outlawed in this country long ago. Let me elaborate… even if these people were on-site employees of 99Designs, 99Designs would not get any rights to their works if they were not at least paying them the federally established minimum hourly wage, right? RIGHT. So why on earth, when these artists are NOT employees of 99Designs, and they are NOT being fairly paid, would 99Designs possibly think for a moment that they could own (or transfer the right to own) these artists’ works?

If someone is not your employee, and they perform work off-site, on their own equipment, on their own software, paying for their own electricity, receiving no benefits of any kind whatsoever from your company, and said work results in the creation of intellectual properties, then for those properties to even be ELIGIBLE to be considered work-for-hire they MUST fall into one of the following NINE (and ONLY nine) categories, as enumerated clearly in copyright law.

1) A contribution to a collective work (such as a magazine, newspaper, encyclopedia, or anthology).

2) A contribution used as part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work.

3) A supplementary work, which includes pictorial illustrations, maps, and charts, done to supplement a work done by another author.

4) A compilation (new arrangement of pre-existing works).

5) A translation.

6) An atlas.

7) A test.

8) Answer material for a test.

9) An instructional text (defined as a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and with the purpose of use in systematic instructional activities).

Works that fall outside of these nine categories (like logo designs!) are clearly ineligible to be work for hire, even with a signed contract. Just because 99Designs has tricked some artists into signing away their rights doesn’t mean that it’s legal to do so, or that their contracts are binding. 99Designs needs to realize that you can not bend and interpret the law to suit your needs. Law is law, and any wrongdoing WILL catch up with you eventually. (think Napster, The Pirate Bay, Jack Kevorkian, etc…)

A contract by very definition must be inure to the benefit of both parties. Otherwise, by law, it must be construed as a waiver.

Also, if you will read through the blog postings for 99Designs, which can be accessed right from their website, many artists who have fallen for their scam never even receive the measly well-under-market-value pittance amounts that they were promised after the close of one of these “contests”. I have read postings from several artists who have already been waiting well over six months to be paid for their works. This is completely unacceptable, not to mention illegal.

ARTISTS—DO NOT EVER SIGN WORK FOR HIRE AGREEMENTS! WE HAVE FOUGHT LONG AND HARD FOR THE RIGHTS THAT WE HAVE! DO NOT LET THESE TRICKSTERS DECEIVE YOU! YOUR WORK HAS WORTH! IF YOU HAVE BEEN RIPPED OFF OR TRICKED, JOIN A UNION THAT WILL FIGHT FOR YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS, THEN FILE A GRIEVANCE! SEEK BACK DAMAGES FOR THE USAGE OF WORK THAT IS RIGHTFULLY YOURS! JOIN THE GRAPHIC ARTISTS GUILD TODAY! (http://www.gag.org)

Absolutely Infuriated with the Total Lack of Ethics in this Industry,
Peter McClean | Multi-Media Artist
http://www.petermcclean.com

Also, all artists and designers should follow:
http://www.twitter.com/nospec
http://www.twitter.com/SpecWatch
http://www.twitter.com/specworking

(stay informed!) =]

There’s nothing to stop you from going out and getting one-on-one clients, even with a limited portfolio (you mentioned “no portfolio”, in which case you should be studying, not working).

You may need to complete a couple of pro bono jobs e.g. helping a local non-profit with their brand identity, but the experience gained will be so much greater than working on a spec website — you’re improving your face-to-face customer skills, giving back to the local community, networking with business owners, and standing a much greater chance of actually seeing your work used (excellent for your portfolio). You’ll learn about the business much faster too.

I use 99designs, as i think it is a good way to build up a portfolio and earn money at the same time. The win to loss ratio is a big difference, but it is still there – some of the entries that win aren’t that great but there ARE some good ones that do win.

I think the only reason that everyone who posts about these websites and says they are rubbish is because they have clients coming to them for one on one work, where as the people on spec sites probably don’t have that yet. I’m not saying it is the best work out there, but it is good to start off with and build a portfolio with. If you have no portfolio nobody is going to hire you as they don’t know your skills – so you have to build one up somewhere, sure you could make logos etc for imaginary companies but theres not a chance of a win then.

I would much prefer to work one on one with people instead, but i am still building up my portfolio and still have alot to learn about it all.

Here is just some of the work i have done on 99designs http://www.thegraphicshack.com/?p=200

Adam.

My view is professional services need to be paid for. No matter what industry you are in.

You’re more than welcome.

thanks for showing me the light david.