The founder of the biggest picture library in the world once said that intellectual property is the oil of the 21st century. No IP gas in your tank? Feeling left out? You don’t need to be. Just enter this great new EPUK competition and win your very own picture library!

Just think what you could do with a picture library of your own. Forget about boring your friends and family with snaps of your weekend in Skegness: entertain them with almost-pro ones from your library. Better yet, forget Skegness and bore them with your pictures of places you’ve never even been to: you’ll have lots once you get your picture library rolling.

But best of all, with your own library you can be your own publisher and sell those pics around the world and trouser the cash! Just listen to what previous winners have to say. “As a newspaper proprietor I used to have to pay for pictures. But with my own competition now I get them for free – it’s changed my life” – Mr Rupert M of east London. And Mr Mark T of Shepherd’s Bush: “I used to pay a fortune for pictures. Now I’ve got punters queuing up to give me whatever I need for nothing – and I can flog the stuff to anyone I want! Thank you EPUK!” Who knows whom the next lucky winner might be? Perhaps Mr Alan R of Farringdon, or – it could be you!

Of course it helps if you’re a well-respected company with a liberal reputation , a much-loved national charity or even someone who masquerades as a member of the family. But don’t worry, that’s not essential – anyone can play. All you need is a website, some cheap prizes and an eye for the main chance – read on to see how it’s done.

Choose a theme and name your competition. It’s best to play it safe here, and go for that old favourite travel photography.

Write the terms of your competition. Ok it sounds dull, but this paperwork is the key to your future riches, so pay attention. You can write pretty much anything you want – it’s your competition after all! – but there are two golden rules.

Firstly, you must make sure all your mug punters – that is, entrants – sign over their rights to you. Some competitions try to grab entrants’ copyright, but even amateur photographers have got wise to that one. Fortunately EPUK’s expert legal team have come up with a winning exclusive license formulation that is better than copyright – you [and only you] can do whatever you like with the pictures and still hold the photographer liable for all your costs if you get sued. If the photographer sells his copyright work to a competitor, you can nail him and he has to pay your costs. Magic! All of the bunce and none of the risk!

EPUK’s patented Monkeystunner™ T&C applet does all this for you automatically, adding a configurable level of obfuscation with pseudo-legal claptrap and generating reams of ready-for-use very small print. Monkeystunner Multimedia Edition™ can also generate a tedious chain of web links as used by the BBC. Remember, it saves time and bother if nobody reads your T&C’s. But there’s no need to worry if you don’t get it right first time: you can just make it up as you go and change them when you need to. In fact, you can change them as many times as you want until you get them right!

Secondly, your competition should only be open to amateur photographers. Professionals will ask all sorts of nasty questions about copyright and payment – you don’t want that! Amateurs on the other hand will be happy to hand over their work for the honour of competing and the chance to win a fabulous prize.

Buy your fabulous prize. Don’t get carried away now – it doesn’t have to be too fabulous, remember you’re in this to make a profit. But don’t be too cheap either – your contestants already have a camera of some kind, so a Boots disposable won’t do. Best to make a trip to Dixon’s with your plastic and buy something a little better, and it’s a good idea to throw in a printer as well, just to show you’re a classy operation. A Canon Digital IXUS camera and a SELPHY DS810 compact printer should be about right, and will only set you back about £500: not much to pay for your own picture library, eh? Some folk have paid lots more!

EPUK Handy Hint. Whatever prize you buy, include the following phrase in your terms and conditions. “The competition is not open to employees of Canon, their agencies or anyone else connected with the creation or administration of the competition.” Maybe Canon are sponsoring your competition, maybe they’re not: but your punters will think they are, and that’s what matters. And you can ban Canon employees if you want. Remember, it’s your competition, and hey, you just bought the prize – why should you give it back to them?

Upload your competition website, spam some photo lists, and wait for the piccies to roll in. Yes, that’s it! Soon you’ll have thousands, perhaps millions, of pictures to do with as you please. So long as you’ve followed the EPUK Four Step Method™ you’ll soon have a picture library of your very own.

Coming soon on EPUK: win a caption writer! ! Good captions will help you sell the pictures in your new library, but you can’t trust your punters to be able to write them – after all they’re just photographers. Fortunately recent changes in journalism mean there are now lots of caption writers available: and we’re going to give you the chance to win one! Watch out for the forthcoming EPUK Win A Blunt™ competition.