They targeted it to poets who wanted to connect with their peers, to seek reviews and feedback, and to receive recognition, contest prizes and publishing assistance.
[citation needed] In April 2011, Poetry.com was purchased by a New York-based group of private investors (Scott Tilson, Jeffrey Franz) from Lulu.com for undisclosed terms.
By 2015, it had become a free-to-use site for amateur poets, where poets submitting to Poetry.com granted the site "royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right (including any moral rights) and license to use, license, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, communicate to the public, perform and display the content (in whole or in part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, for the full term of any Rights that may exist in such content.
[6] Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. (SFWA) have criticized the International Library of Poetry's business model, describing its practices as "deceptive and misleading" in that they misrepresented their activities as a contest based on the quality of poetry submitted, whereas in fact the quality had little or no influence on the outcome.
critics pointed out that standard industry practice was for winners of poetry contests to receive gratis copies of any publication of their work, and that ILP failed to follow this protocol.