Is it right to use the ideas of non-winning designers in a design contest?

Question

I am a mobile developer. I want to create my own mobile app, so I ran a contest for the mobile design.

Many good designers participated in the contest. I get lots of good ideas from almost all of them. Ultimately I choose one of the designers because of the good looking design.

But many other designers have used brilliant ideas which I never thought of. So I note down all ideas and ask the winning designer to integrate it into his work. The final result is completely different than what I have imagined.

Is it ethically, legally and morally right to use the design ideas of other non-winning designers in the design contest? Who owns the right of designs submitted in contests?

Answer 1

Ethically and morally..... using any "contest" is merely taking advantage of designers.

Contest do nothing but take advantage of designers and give all the benefit to the person running the contest. It essentially amounts to "slave labor" of a sort. All designers should adamantly avoid "contest" settings. However, if a designer freely agrees to being taken advantage of, well that's their right (and folly).

Without knowing exactly what the terms and conditions are/were of your "contest" and what submission meant in terms of rights transfers.... Given that all artwork is copyrighted the moment it is created. No you can not freely use aspect of other designs without permission. Traditionally, you only get rights to the "winning" design you choose. Most "contest" do not provide rights to every single submission. You will need to check the terms though to be certain.

Ideas or concepts can't be copyrighted. So, using concepts is technically okay. Although it's again an arguable ethics issue. You must be certain to avoid using any tangible, recognizable aspects of any design you do not have permission to use.

Answer 2

No, it is not right.

Use what you paid for and make sure all the other contestants you are taking inspiration from are compensated. These authors own their work unless/until you buy it. If you can only afford one winning proposal, then that's what you should be using.

Answer 3

I realized that it is OK to take inspiration from others work, but what I have done is illegal and immoral because I used lots of design ideas from other contestants.

The correct way is to ask for permission from those creators, and pay them the mutually-agreed-upon price if they give permission.

But, I didn't have financial means to pay them. So, I was left with only one option to steer clear of wrongdoing: I deleted all design files and assets, as well as the project where I implemented the design.

Get nospec.com link from the above comments. I learned from the site that the contests harm both the designers and the clients.

Answer 4

No.

In slightly more detail:

Ideas aren't copyrightable. But their expression is. If it's just an idea, well, you can use it. But the closer in expression your implementation is to what they've shown you in their entries, the more likely it is to be legally protected.

And if their designs are legally protected, which seems likely, then unless the entrants to the contest have signed their rights over to you then using their designs is almost certainly illegal. They would be well within their rights to sue.

If you have made them sign their rights over to you for free, then it's not illegal. But it's certainly immoral and unethical.

If I were you, I'd take this as an important learning opportunity, and implement the winning design only. Then count your lucky stars you asked this question and used the answers to escape so lightly.

Answer 5

I'm a bit late to the party, but here's my 2 cents:

For the legal part, that depends on what was written in the contest legal text and what the contestants agreed upon. Perhaps there was a clause that gave all copyright to you. In that case, you're clean. If not, then probably you need to get a permission from them.

It also depends on what you "steal". If it's just conceptual ideas (icon here, checkbox here, layout, etc) - I think that's fine. But whole pictures, icons, texts, etc - that's not so good. Still, IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer), so don't take this as a legal advice.

Now, for the ethical part. What feels right to me is this - it's OK to make contests, but they have to be made in a fashion that doesn't abuse the contestants. That is, a contest of "make the whole thing for me and the best one gets paid" is obviously an exploitation. But "here's one small part of what needs to be done; show me how you would do it and the best one of you gets a big juicy contract to finish the rest" - that's totally fine. This is like asking them for a sample of their work. You should however make sure that the part you're asking them to make indeed is small. Like, it should probably take the contestants no more than some 4-16 hours to complete. The less, the better. It should be enough to allow you to evaluate their skills (that's the point of the contest after all), but not so much that they would feel like they've wasted loads of time for no return.

Alternatively, you could offer all contestants that meet some minimum criteria some fair compensation. Be careful with the criteria though so that you don't get abused. And, of course, this depends on how much cash you have to burn on getting the perfect candidate.