Hold three sessions in one month, and you can increase your ticket price by spending money on gifts. Online stealing pictures can participate in the breeder company and issue medals.
This so-called "National Photography Art Competition", who will take the money from the competition?
our reporter
The so-called "National Photography Art Competition" will be held three times within a month, and you can also participate if you submit video screenshots; the first-name work in the preliminary competition is suspected of being stolen from three foreign photographers, and 99% of the votes are obtained by gifting; the medals of the competition come from breeders company……
Recently, many photography enthusiasts have received the registration notice for the "The Fourth Vision Global Cup National Photography Art Competition" (hereinafter referred to as the "Photo Contest"). "Masterpiece" to participate.
On March 25, the preliminary contest of the photo contest ended, and the voting page showed that a total of 1,872 contestants participated.
However, the Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporter found that this "National Photography Contest" was full of doubts and loopholes.
If you are willing to spend money, the number of votes can "rocket up"
Wu Lihai from Beijing is a photography enthusiast. He is good at architectural photography and landscape photography. After retirement, he often set up "long guns and short guns" with many photography "old guns" in many scenic spots in Beijing.
As a contestant of this photo contest, after the preliminary round, he ranked in the top 100, according to the rules of the competition, he could successfully enter the final, but he was not happy.
"It was supposed to be online voting. How come there is a rule that giving gifts can increase the number of votes? What's the difference between this and brushing votes?" Wu Lihai was very puzzled.
It is mentioned in the event notice that contestants only need to provide 1 to 3 original photographs to the organizer to participate in the competition.
The photography competition is divided into two stages: the preliminary competition and the final competition. The works that have won the special prize, first prize, second prize and third prize in the final will also be eligible for "expert comment".
After the preliminary round started on February 26, many contestants shared their voting links with their relatives and friends and circles of friends to "canvass" to improve their rankings.
The reporter found that the most conspicuous part of the voting page has a button "Help TA".
The voting rules are that each person can only cast 1 vote per contestant per day, with a maximum of 3 votes per day.
Once the votes are cast, the screen will display "Gifts can increase the number of votes".
Click to open, there are 9 kinds of "gifts", ranging in value from 10 yuan to 1288 yuan, the cheapest "Cheers for You" is 10 yuan and 50 tickets, and the most expensive "Oscar Trophy" is 1288 yuan and 9999 tickets.
"When I shared the voting link to WeChat groups and Moments, the original intention was to let everyone help vote, but many friends sent screenshots, saying that they had already spent money to help me. If they knew they would spend money, they would not share the link. 'Canvassing'." Wu Lihai said.
According to Wu Lihai, his relatives and friends spent less than ten yuan and more than 300 yuan.
On the gift support page, there is a text prompt "The player is XXX votes away from the previous one, you can also send a XXX to the TA to surpass the previous one".
"Looking at Lao Wu's ranking very high, he is only 500 votes away from the previous one. I 'swiped' a 'tripod' to help him. If he can surpass the first one, he will be the first!" Wu Lihai's friend Liu Mingming told reporters .
The first place has more than 100,000 votes, and the work is purely a stolen picture
Liu Xinli is a contestant from Shanghai: "In the preliminary round, I was originally ranked high, but in the last hour before the voting was about to close, the votes for the top three began to 'increase', and every refresh, the number of votes would increase Thousands. How can I find thousands of people to help in such a short period of time? There is no other way but to spend money on gifts.”
What made her even more puzzled was that two of the three photos submitted by the first place "Nan Ping" in the preliminary round had been seen on foreign copyright image websites. How could it be taken by the same person?
As of press time, the total number of votes for "Nanping" was 102,908. Among the friends who supported it, as many as 6 friends gave it an "Oscar trophy" worth 1,288 yuan, directly helping it with nearly 60,000 votes.
According to the help list on the page, "Nanping" received a total of 22 gifts with a total value of 13,895 yuan, boosting the number of votes to 102,794, and the proportion of gift support votes accounted for more than 99%.
Among the three works submitted by "Nan Ping", the scenes photographed were farmland, sunset and waterfall, and none of the three works had the title of the work.
According to the clues provided by Liu Xinli, the reporter conducted a "image search" on the copyright image website Pexels and found that the real name of the work "farmland" was "Green Trees on Brown Field", and the photographer was Mexico. Photographer Abraham; the real name of the work "Sunset" is "Running Vehicles on Road", the photographer is British photographer Bob Ward; the real name of the work "Waterfall" is "A Waterfall in the Forest" in the Forest), by a Turkish photographer.
The reporter also conducted a "picture search" on the contestant with the second most votes and found that the three submitted works belonged to three photographers, and their gift support also accounted for more than 99% of the votes.
Although it is mentioned in the "Notes" of the competition notice that "the works submitted by the contestants must be original works, and the responsibility for suspected copyright disputes is at their own risk", there is no mention of how to identify original works and how to deal with copyright disputes.
Liu Xinli told reporters that when the photo contest is collecting works, the organizer collects photos from the contestants through WeChat. "If you submit photos in this way, how can the organizer verify the originality of the work? If the copyright information of the work cannot be verified, such as What's the point of the selection? Can anyone steal pictures online to participate in the competition?" She raised doubts about the copyright of the first contestant's work to the organizer, but she has yet to receive a reply.
"The first two contestants are very likely to be 'child care' deliberately set up by the organizer, the purpose is to drive the follow-up contestants to spend money on gifts." Liu Xinli said suspiciously.
The reporter retrieved the works of the competition and found that some works also have a clear watermark in the lower left corner, and some works are a screenshot of a video, and even the pattern of the video pause button is clearly visible.
Can the Breeder Company Award be awarded to a photography contest?
It's not just the rules and entries that are confusing.
The Chinese name of the competition is "The 4th Visual Global Cup National Photography Art Competition", but the English translation below has become "The 1st Visual Global Photography Competition" (The 1st Visual Global Photography Competition).
The three organizers of the competition are the Visual Global Photography Art Network, the Royal Impression Photography Industry Platform and the Organizing Committee of the Photography Competition. However, no matter whether it is Chinese or English, there is no relevant information on the above three.
The competition notice also mentioned that "every 2,000 likes will give 1 yuan to the children's art public welfare program for every 2,000 likes to the contestants who are committed to the rural aesthetic education public welfare program" and "winners can be recommended as directors of the Photography Art Research Society".
When the reporter searched "Rural Aesthetic Education Public Welfare Program" and "Photography Art Research Society", they also found no public information related to these two items.
After the finals, medals and certificates will be awarded to the contestants.
When the reporter searched for information based on the sample image of the medal on the event notice, he found that the event corresponding to the medal was the "Cobb Champion Award", which was established by the American breeder company "Cobb". , meat suppliers, etc.
As for the supporting media for the photo contest listed in the event notice, including Tencent News, Sina News, Sohu News, Art China, etc., the reporters have not seen any public reports on the event on the above-mentioned news platforms.
On March 30, the organizer of the photography competition issued a notice to all contestants: "Great news! The winners of the second prize and above of the 4th Vision Global Cup National Photography Art Competition will be recommended by the competition organizing committee to join PSA China (Photographic Society of America). (China))."
The reporter contacted PSA China by phone for verification, and the staff of the society responded that "PSA China has nothing to do with this competition, and the society does not have the stipulation that the society can be recommended for membership if it has won an award. Anyone who loves photography can apply online for review and pay the membership fee. Join later."
In addition, the reporter found information about the previous three photo contests. To the reporter's surprise, the previous three contests ended on January 11, March 14, and March 16 respectively.
In addition to the ongoing one, a total of three "National Photography Art Competitions" will be held in March.
Who benefits? Who is running?
According to the information provided by the respondents, the organizer of the event is Guangzhou Qiwen Education.
The reporter then called the official customer service of the photo contest to verify, which is also the only contact related to the contest that can be retrieved from the public information.
A customer service who called himself "Mr. Zheng" confirmed that Guangzhou Qiwen Education was one of the organizers of the event.
When asked, "Why doesn't the 'Visual World Art Network' website as one of the organizers exist? Which photography professional organizations have supported the competition selection?" It is mainly based on voting mini-programs.”
The reporter found that the WeChat avatar of "Mr. Zheng" is the same photo as the public account "Visual C Art" that released the winners list of the competition, and the certification body of the "Visual C Art" public account is Xiamen Xuejiajia Culture Media Co., Ltd.
What is the relationship between Guangzhou Qiwen Education and Xiamen Xuejiajia Culture Media Co., Ltd.?
Are they qualified to host a national photo contest?
The reporter's investigation found that Guangzhou Qiwen Education is called Guangzhou Qiwen Education Technology Co., Ltd., and its business scope includes information system security services, network security information consulting, and information electronic technology services.
The business scope of Xiamen Xuejiajia Culture Media Co., Ltd. includes advertising design, production, agency, and publication, providing corporate marketing planning services; cultural and artistic activity planning, market management, office services, etc.
The company used to be called Xiamen Xueduoduo Network Technology Co., Ltd., and mentioned in the company profile that "it connects regional education and training institutions, children aged 0 to 15 and their parents, with information screening, course group purchases, free trial listening and learning. An e-commerce platform that communicates attributes".
The reporter tried to contact the person in charge of the enterprise through the phone of the two companies, but the phone of the two companies has been unable to connect.
Subsequently, the reporter found the "Xuejiajia" WeChat public account with Xiamen Xuejiajia Culture Media Co., Ltd. as the main account, and found that the official account will stop updating from November 10, 2021, and the relevant articles in the official account are all related to Education and training related, no photography related content.
The recipient of the gift after the payment is checked is Xuanfeng Culture and Art Studio, Huli District, Xiamen City.
When the reporter asked about the content of the event by telephone, the other party replied: "We are only the operation platform of the voting applet. All matters related to the event, as well as the whereabouts of the money for gift support, need to ask the organizer of the event."
According to the ranking, both Wu Lihai and Liu Xinli successfully advanced to the finals, and they also received the promotion notice and "canvassing" link from the organizer's staff. The finals will end at 21:00 on April 8, 2022.
(Wu Lihai, Liu Mingming and Liu Xinli are all pseudonyms in the text)