If we rule out evil intent on the part of Medium (which seems to be the case if you read the entire OP), we’re left with ignorance and stupidity. In PG’s experience with large organizations, ignorance or stupidity can be just as destructive as evil intent.
In this version of the contest rules, the license really is perpetual. Note the difference: there’s no limit on the grant period. This is the original version, the one that got people upset: Paragraph 10 didn’t always read the way it does now. In other words, this is not the perpetual license that some other contests demand: it has an endpoint, after which it expires. Note the second line of the paragraph, which limits the license to one year from the end of the contest period (presumably that’s the August 24 deadline). In Medium’s case, though, they did take steps to mitigate. It’s very easy to mitigate such language–for instance, by releasing non-winning entrants from the license once the winners are declared–but, carelessly or lazily or just sharkily, depending on how many lawyers formulated the rules, many contest sponsors don’t bother, even though it means that they retain rights they likely have no interest in and no intention of ever using. The intent isn’t so much a nefarious scheme to steal writers’ rights or bind them to eternal servitude, as it is a shortcut for contest sponsors, who don’t have to fuss around with contracts for winners because they’ve already agreed to terms. This kind of language is extremely common, especially, as I’ve mentioned, in high-profile contests. The concern was with the license writers grant simply by entering the contest, the wording of which gives Medium “an irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide, nonexclusive, sublicensable, assignable” license to do pretty much anything it wants with any entry, whether or not it’s a winning entry. Moving on to the fine print, namely this paragraph of the official rules: The deadline to enter is August 24, 2021. A prestigious slate of judges that includes such luminaries as Roxane Gay and Natalie Portman will select four finalists, one for each prompt, and then choose the grand prize winner and the honorable mentions. To enter, writers choose a prompt, create an essay of 500 words or more, and publish it on Medium. The Medium Writers Challenge is an especially rich contest, with a $50,000 grand prize, $10,000 for four finalists (one of the finalists will be the grand prize winner, so one person will actually win $60,000), and 100 honorable mentions who will each receive $100. In a twist, though, I’m not just going to talk about greedy legalese, but also about how one contest sponsor responded to criticism and made it better.
Because it’s so common, though, it never hurts to put out another warning….especially when a contest offers the kind of prize money that’s sure to attract droves of writers. Barron’s Once Upon a Villain flash fiction contest, or the Sunday Times/Audible Short story award, or any number of others. That’s not because I like repeating myself…it’s because bad contest legalese is depressingly common, especially in contests conducted by high-profile organizations or individuals, such as HBO’s “Lovecraft Country” short story contest, or T.A. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know I publish a lot of these. That’s right, boys and girls–it’s another of my posts about hinky contest rules.