Nowhere are the dangers of social media for artists more dramatically displayed than with recent Richard Prince appropriation of Instagram content for big dollar art market use.

The two most succinct points to remember from the above video are:

"There's a thin line between what he (Prince) is doing and what all social media companies are doing; which is, they're all running restaurants in which we come in and bring the ingredients and cook the food!" ~ Chris Hayes, MSNBC

"(Instagram) could have licensed these images to Richard Prince under the terms of use of their service, but they didn't." ~ Xeni Jardin, Boing Boing, via MSNBC

Pay attention, Flicker users. You have given innumerable numbers of your images a Creative Commons (generic) license. You are wide open to Prince-like exploitation!

Use social media with your eyes wide open: you make the cake, others make the money!

Renaissance Photography Prize is an international award that showcases outstanding photography from emerging and established photographers while raising funds to support young women with breast cancer.

Now in its eighth year, the prize is looking to discover talent and celebrate the best in photography, giving image makers access to new opportunities and a world-wide audience for their work.

Entering gives photographers the chance to have their work seen by a panel of some of the industry's most influential photography critics, as well as being exhibited in Getty Images Gallery, London, UK.

Creators and fans around the world will be celebrating
World Intellectual Property Day, April 26.

Join them!

Find numerous events around the world scheduled for April 26: Events

View the worldwide map of IP Day activities

Post your photos and posters on Facebook

Hear from musicians on music

Learn how value is created from music and learn about the rights that make it possible

Playwriting competitions – showcase or short change?

by guest blogger Elspeth Rushbrook

A great way to earn money and start your career? Well, not exactly.

Many competitions work on the assumption that what you the writer most wants is to be seen, and to be able to put on your CV/resume and website that you’ve been performed. But competitions seem to work on the same principle as voluntary work: that doing is a reward in itself and substitutes, if not eclipses, earning. ‘We’re charities, we get little money’, competition organisers say. And yet they’ll charge the public a fee to see the performance and pay their box office staff, but not their writers, and I fear nor do actors, directors, composers or stage crew receive money.

Sometimes, everybody BUT the writer gets money - and they've spent the longest creating the play!

Here are some British-based national open theatre writing competitions whose rules and ethos I query:

Windsor Fringe’s Kenneth Branagh award. Three plays are chosen for performance, one gets picked as winner and gets money. So it means that plays 2 and 3 are performed without prize or fee and cannot be put into other competitions, which almost invariably ask for unperformed works – a point the organisers don’t understand.