Another Contest?

So I found another contest the other day, The Comic Book Challenge. While the contest sounds cool and the grand prize of having a company publish, market and promote the final book is exactly what I want, one stipend of the rules makes me very nervous.

In the releases and agreements section, it first says: “Before a potential Top 50 Entrant winner will be deemed an official Top 50 Entrant winner, he/she will be required to a) sign and return a document containing an Affidavit of Eligibility and a Rights/Publicity/Liability Release (“Top 50 Entrant Release”), and b) sign and return a Comic Book Publishing and Acquisition Agreement and a Work-For-Hire Agreement (collectively, the “Creative Materials Agreements”), and c) have each Team Member, if any, sign a Rights Release (“Team Member Release”) and return such releases along with the other documents described above.”

Further down, and in bold letter it says: “Please note that the Creative Materials Agreements require that you transfer all rights in the Creative Materials to Sponsor.“

Yikes. So essentially what they are saying is that to win the contest, you basically have to give them your project and let them hire you in a work-for-hire arrangement. They agree to hire you and publish the work and market it where you choose, but you have to hand over all creative rights to the project. So if the book is published, gains an audience and is a hit (in a perfect world), they have the right to do with it as they please and collect all the $$$.
After 10 years of working on this, the prospect of having it win and get published is alluring, but signing over all my creative rights to a company I know nothing about and has only held one contest previously and launched a minimally interesting title dose not exactly make me jump for joy. I’m toying with the idea of submitting, but something in the back of my mind is telling me not to and to find another route. Entering this contest would also prevent me from participating in the Small Press Idol honorable mentions issue which would publish Idol cast-offs in a special anthology later this summer as the work is not supposed to be in print at all. Going to have to think on this some more.