Microsoft Repents; Won't Steal Your Photos

If you happened to catch the first version of the Microsoft photo contest post earlier this week (before it died a grisly death in a hail of comment fire) you saw the now infamous "Rule Number Five."

This little paragraph basically demanded all rights to all entries, forever and ever, amen.

It went on to to the point where I am pretty sure that Microsoft was legally entitled to your unborn children. Well, they can have the curtain climbers for all I care. But those draconian rights grabs don't fly 'round these parts.

But hey, turns out it was all a screw-up by the legal types (no, really, lawyers sometimes actually make mistakes) and the real rules are much more photog-friendly.

Basically, they just now want to be able to use the winners to promote future contests without having to pay you. But hey, you did win the big prizes already. Which is not a bad deal at all.

So, to recap, what we are left with is a contest that:

• Is free to enter for college types
• Has killer prizes - as in $20k US, and more
• Does not get to take your baby

and (drum roll)

• Was won by a Strobist reader last year.

(High fives to Strobist reader Alin, who says that in addition to the twenty grand, he took home about $8k in additional hardware and software.)

Not a bad day's work.

And since this is the second year of the contest, that would mean that we are batting 1.000, folks.

So, please, let's try for a repeat. I know some of you college pukes are really shooting the lights out these days. So dig through those pics and submit something before the end of this month.

Newer, more gooder contest details (and prizes) are here.