So I'm about to submit a game to a competition, but as I looked through the rules a chunk grabbed my attention:All Entries become the sole and exclusive property of Sponsor and will not be acknowledged or returned. Sponsor shall own all right, title and interest in and to each Entry, including without limitation all results and proceeds thereof and all elements or constituent parts of Entry (including without limitation the Mobile App, the Design Documents, the Video Trailer, the Playable and all illustrations, logos, mechanicals, renderings, characters, graphics, designs, layouts or other material therein) and all copyrights and renewals and extensions of copyrights therein and thereto.  Without limitation of the foregoing, each Eligible Entrant shall and hereby does absolutely and irrevocably assign and transfer all of his or her right, title and interest in his or her Entry to Sponsor, and Sponsor shall have the right and may authorize others to use, copy, sublicense, transmit, modify, manipulate, publish, delete, reproduce, perform, distribute,  display and otherwise exploit the Entry (and to create and exploit derivative works thereof) in any manner, including without limitation to embody the Entry, in whole or in part, in apps and other works of any kind or nature created, developed, published or distributed by Sponsor and to and register as a trademark in any country in Sponsors name any component of the Entry, without such Eligible Entrant reserving any rights or claims with respect thereto.  Sponsor shall have the exclusive right, in perpetuity, throughout the Territory to change, adapt, modify, use, combine with other material and otherwise exploit the Entry in all media now known or hereafter devised and in any manner, in its sole and absolute discretion, without the need for any payment or credit to Entrant.So the game will become the sponsor's property; however, they don't ask for source code. So will I still own the rights to the source code, whatever that means? And if it doesn't win said competition, will I be able to publish it myself without their trademarks? I am very new to software legality stuff, so I would appreciate any clarification.Since there's a possibility I won't even own the source, is it possible to make the game core engine open source software with a not-very-restrictive license and include that in the project, so I at least still own the game engine? Or does it not work that way?
Submitting software to a competition, it becomes their property?
licensing;legal
I'm not sure you'd even still own the source code any more -- it looks to me like if they want it, they can probably demand it. In any case, they have all rights to the game itself, so even if you don't turn the source code over to them, you can't use it in any way without their permission.If it were my game, I wouldn't bother with a lawyer -- I wouldn't need to pay anybody for advice to stay a long ways away from this one.