Non-competitive mitten

I'm in mitten mood... First of all, thanks for your nice comments on my last mitten post.

I heard about a mitten contest at garn.dk from Murf. I don't have time for that, was my first thought. But then mitten ideas started spinning around in my head. I had a look at their Shetland Wool, loved the colours, and ordered three of them.

Then I had a closer look at their site, looking for the contest rules. Terms of contest, it said, so I clicked there: Submit one mitten pattern, in one or more sizes, toghether with the knitted item (that you will get back) within the 27th of October. The yarn must be from garn.dk, and the pattern must not have been published anywhere else. And then the five prices, knitting needles and between 250 and 1000 Dkr (between 43 and 172 $), to buy yarn from garn.dk.

There was nothing about what would happen to the pattern, so I sent them an e-mail and asked.
- The winning patterns will be made available for free on the BC garn site.
Ok, but still nothing about copyright. I asked if the designer would keep the copyright, and for example be able to translate the pattern to English and make it available from Ravelry.
- No, Tori, that's not how it works. If you choose to participate in our contest, and win, we get the copyright.

Not a good deal, I thought. For between 250 and 1000 Dkr, they get the copyright for ever. Thanks, but no thanks. And I wonder, can they really do that, without stating it clearly in the contest terms? I know very little about law, but it does not seem right to me.

I don't know much about publicity either, but I wonder, is the copyright really that important for them? If I were to win such a contest, and for example make my pattern available on Ravelry, I would probably write something like "this pattern was number three in garn.dk's mitten contest" and I would link to their site.

What do you think?

Here's the mitten, by the way. I could not wait for the Shetland Wool to arrive, but used Rauma 3ply from my stash. I like it. And I see it in lots of different colours. But maybe not from garn.dk...