Contest FAIL

In case some of you weren't aware of a certain thing known as "crowd sourcing", allow me to briefly explain. Basically, it's when a client or company or individual doesn't want the hassle of choosing just one artist to do a project, or to even pay said artist for the work, they do something strange... they hold a "contest". A "competition" open to the public, to gather as much free work as possible and hopefully get the desired creative result. This sort of thing has sadly become more popular over the last while, and many a naive young artists fall victim to it.
Remember the good old days when companies used to "outsource" (send work to India or China for cheap labour) Now they just package it up in the form of a "contest" and get you to do it for free!! ...oh, but in this case, "if you win", you get a copy of your work signed by the President.
...Lame.

For more info/reading on this particular subject, you can read where I first read about it, here on Drawn.ca posted by John Martz

And definitely check out the conversation here on Luc Latulippe's Google+ page.

Luc also recently posted about Moleskine getting into it as well.
I can see Obama and the US government stooping this low, but Moleskine too?!
Sad. Just sad.
I hope none of you, my artist friends out there, fall for these traps.