Curious if anyone has taken a look at the ICON Initiative 99 Design Competition License Agreement? ICON is the concrete 3D printing company working primarily in Austin.
As an entrant you have to sign this licensing agreement that includes this text:
This Agreement is being made in connection with Licensor’s participation in ICON’s Initiative 99 Competition (“I99”) and covers all I99 material, documents, videos, drawing, schemes, works of authorship, information, concepts, inventions, and ideas submitted by Licensor to ICON in connection with I99 (the “Licensed Materials”). Licensor retains ownership of the Licensed Materials subject to the licenses granted under this Agreement.
B. Licensor, on behalf of Licensor and, as applicable, its employees and contractors, hereby grants to ICON a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, and fully paid right and license (“License”) to make, have made, use, reproduce, publish, publicly display, perform, combine, improve, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works, offer to sell, sell, or otherwise commercialize the Licensed Materials.
If I am reading this correctly, even if you don't win ICON can build your designs and not compensate you at all. Do others understand it this way? If so, I feel like this is a terrible framework for aspiring young designers and there should not be high profile architects and architectural educators supporting it by being on the jury.
Just wondering what the rest of the community thinks.
a46fast1
Aug 12, 23 4:32 pm
As a follow-up, there is also this text regarding royalities where they offer to enhance entrants' "reputation and goodwill" by building their work without any royalties.
4.2—Royalties & Consideration
A. ICON will not be required to pay any royalties, milestones, fees, or other monetary consideration to Licensor for the License or any use, sublicensing, or commercialization of the Licensed Materials.
B. As consideration for the License, Licensor was an entrant in ICON’s I99 competition in which Licensor was given the opportunity to win prizes. As a result of participating in I99, Licensor may have the opportunity for the Licensed Materials to be reproduced and built, thereby enhancing Licensor’s reputation and goodwill. Licensor agrees that this is good, valuable, and fair consideration for the License.
Donna Sink
Aug 17, 23 10:52 am
Yikes. That seems bad.
Non Sequitur
Aug 12, 23 5:37 pm
You got it. Likely a fake competition too, no real winner... other than this 3d printing jive company.
archanonymous
Aug 13, 23 7:31 am
They've built real projects, so I'm not sure I'd phrase it that way. Maybe more like "exploitative, hype-driven, no-idea having bloodsuckers."
Bench
Aug 14, 23 8:48 am
NS - to the contrary, this is a very real competition at a large company with a portfolio of recent completed works. The terms that you're showing above are absolutely ridiculous. Beyond that, doesn't this clash with standard AIA contract documents?
Chad Miller
Aug 14, 23 10:09 am
They may be a real company however the agreement you have to sign to compete is dishonest, shady, possibly illegal, and clearly just a way to get new design ideas for the firm to use.
I wouldn't be surprised if there is clause in the competition that only awards the $1million prize money IF the project is built and IF the winner runs the project through CA. I've seen clauses like this in other big design competitions. The kicker is that if the winner can't run the project through CA and meet various licensing and insurance requirements then they are booted from the project and the majority of the 'prize money' is given to the firm that takes over the project. This firm is typically chosen by the judges.
Bench
Aug 14, 23 11:19 am
Everything about this feels off. Beyond that, isn't there an actual corporation that just makes money off of running random "competitions" with high e
ntry fees? They post on here all the time, it feels shady af. This feels like just the same thing but from a professional corp.
Chad Miller
Aug 14, 23 5:45 pm
There are a couple of groups that run comps that have high entry fees and seem like a scam - I looked at one for for a tiny house design - they wanted $150 entry to win $500 first prize. You also got to have a 'video' made of your work and practice but you had to hire on of their consultants to do so . . .
a46fast1
Aug 14, 23 11:40 pm
Glad you all agree. ICON is a very well funded (VC / Silicon Valley type funding) company that has worked with big name architects like Lake Flato and (literally) BIG. So it makes me pretty ill to see them use a competition to extract free work out of people - mostly ambitious young architects. And I've seen bad competition briefs but I've never seen one say even if you lose we might build your project anyway and give you nothing in return. You probably won't even get their promised goodwill because you will never know they used your work.
Janosh
Aug 16, 23 3:11 pm
Like most competitions, this one is a scam. The business folks that run ICON surely wouldn't enter a similar competition that gave away their intellectual property for the possibility of winning a prize whose dollar amount is less than the market value of the services requried to enter the competition...
JLC-1
Aug 17, 23 12:12 pm
Besides this being a scam or worse, I'm really fed up with all the 3d printing bs. A dwelling for under 99k is achievable by many means, 3d printing is not one of them, and if someone promises you that it's a scam.
JLC-1
Aug 17, 23 12:20 pm
How can we not see the BS behind "printing houses"? in affordable housing, land and infrastructure make up the bulk of the price, it doesn't really matters if you build with sticks or liquid mud, unless you "want" a city made of these
Curious if anyone has taken a look at the ICON Initiative 99 Design Competition License Agreement? ICON is the concrete 3D printing company working primarily in Austin.
https://iconbuild.com/initiati...
As an entrant you have to sign this licensing agreement that includes this text:
This Agreement is being made in connection with Licensor’s participation in ICON’s Initiative 99 Competition (“I99”) and covers all I99 material, documents, videos, drawing, schemes, works of authorship, information, concepts, inventions, and ideas submitted by Licensor to ICON in connection with I99 (the “Licensed Materials”). Licensor retains ownership of the Licensed Materials subject to the licenses granted under this Agreement.
B. Licensor, on behalf of Licensor and, as applicable, its employees and contractors, hereby grants to ICON a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, and fully paid right and license (“License”) to make, have made, use, reproduce, publish, publicly display, perform, combine, improve, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works, offer to sell, sell, or otherwise commercialize the Licensed Materials.
If I am reading this correctly, even if you don't win ICON can build your designs and not compensate you at all. Do others understand it this way? If so, I feel like this is a terrible framework for aspiring young designers and there should not be high profile architects and architectural educators supporting it by being on the jury.
Just wondering what the rest of the community thinks.
As a follow-up, there is also this text regarding royalities where they offer to enhance entrants' "reputation and goodwill" by building their work without any royalties.
4.2—Royalties & Consideration
A. ICON will not be required to pay any royalties, milestones, fees, or other monetary consideration to Licensor for the License or any use, sublicensing, or commercialization of the Licensed Materials.
B. As consideration for the License, Licensor was an entrant in ICON’s I99 competition in which Licensor was given the opportunity to win prizes. As a result of participating in I99, Licensor may have the opportunity for the Licensed Materials to be reproduced and built, thereby enhancing Licensor’s reputation and goodwill. Licensor agrees that this is good, valuable, and fair consideration for the License.
Yikes. That seems bad.
You got it. Likely a fake competition too, no real winner... other than this 3d printing jive company.
They've built real projects, so I'm not sure I'd phrase it that way. Maybe more like "exploitative, hype-driven, no-idea having bloodsuckers."
NS - to the contrary, this is a very real competition at a large company with a portfolio of recent completed works. The terms that you're showing above are absolutely ridiculous. Beyond that, doesn't this clash with standard AIA contract documents?
They may be a real company however the agreement you have to sign to compete is dishonest, shady, possibly illegal, and clearly just a way to get new design ideas for the firm to use.
I wouldn't be surprised if there is clause in the competition that only awards the $1million prize money IF the project is built and IF the winner runs the project through CA. I've seen clauses like this in other big design competitions. The kicker is that if the winner can't run the project through CA and meet various licensing and insurance requirements then they are booted from the project and the majority of the 'prize money' is given to the firm that takes over the project. This firm is typically chosen by the judges.
Everything about this feels off. Beyond that, isn't there an actual corporation that just makes money off of running random "competitions" with high e ntry fees? They post on here all the time, it feels shady af. This feels like just the same thing but from a professional corp.
There are a couple of groups that run comps that have high entry fees and seem like a scam - I looked at one for for a tiny house design - they wanted $150 entry to win $500 first prize. You also got to have a 'video' made of your work and practice but you had to hire on of their consultants to do so . . .
Glad you all agree. ICON is a very well funded (VC / Silicon Valley type funding) company that has worked with big name architects like Lake Flato and (literally) BIG. So it makes me pretty ill to see them use a competition to extract free work out of people - mostly ambitious young architects. And I've seen bad competition briefs but I've never seen one say even if you lose we might build your project anyway and give you nothing in return. You probably won't even get their promised goodwill because you will never know they used your work.
Like most competitions, this one is a scam. The business folks that run ICON surely wouldn't enter a similar competition that gave away their intellectual property for the possibility of winning a prize whose dollar amount is less than the market value of the services requried to enter the competition...
Besides this being a scam or worse, I'm really fed up with all the 3d printing bs. A dwelling for under 99k is achievable by many means, 3d printing is not one of them, and if someone promises you that it's a scam.
How can we not see the BS behind "printing houses"? in affordable housing, land and infrastructure make up the bulk of the price, it doesn't really matters if you build with sticks or liquid mud, unless you "want" a city made of these