What is and isn’t okay when someone posts your articles on their sites?

I realize that this is a little confusing for newbies to understand.  With all the talk of usage rights and plagiarism, it’s easy to be a bit bumfuzzled about what is and isn’t okay when you come across a completely different site with your article on it whether it is part of your article or your whole article.

Whole article

If you find your article in whole on another site, first check to make sure that it isn’t a partner distribution from Y!CN.  Look under your content tab on your account page.  You’ll see the word “Partner” on the right.  Click on it.  Check to see if the article is listed there and what site it went to.

If you don’t find it, look under payments for any payment that was a distribution payment.

If you’re still coming up empty handed, it is likely plagiarism.  Note that one key item that can tip you off if it’s plagiarism is if they don’t have your Y!CN byline on it.

This isn’t okay.  And it isn’t just NOT okay, it’s illegal.  But what you do next is determined by what rights to the article you’ve retained when you published it on Y!CN.  If it was Exclusive, then shoot an email to the legal team at Y!CN and let them take care of it.  If it was Non-Exclusive or Display Only, then you’ll have to deal with it yourself, however you want to deal with it.

Part of the article

If another site is going to link your article, they should only take a paragraph or two with a link back to your article.  I do this on my TV Slugs blog all the time.  This is completely okay.  More than okay, really, because it gives you a link back and more exposure.

But some sites do get greedy.  I found the whole first page of an article once on another site.  They linked back to my article but after reading the entire first page, only a small fraction of readers, if any, was going to click through to my article.  I politely thanked them for providing a link back to my article but taking a whole page wasn’t proper etiquette.  (Anyone who does niche blog content exposure knows this, so I’m sure it wasn’t news to them.)  I asked them to shorten it or remove it.

But that’s it.  If another site takes a paragraph or two and links back, great!  Anything more then that is cause for concern.

For more info on plagiarism topics within this site, click here.

Another Income Option for Your AC Content

If you write on a particular subject often, one option for an additional (I almost typed addiction; a proper term with regards to AC, I suppose) revenue is to gather several articles of the same subject and compile them into an e-book.  For example, if you write about a television show all season long, at the end of the season, you can do a wrap up of the season and then publish it into an ebook.

Pssst! I design e-book covers! Click me!

Publishing e-books yourself is a rather simple process and most platforms will give you simple instructions on how to format and do this.  Some e-book platforms I use is Amazon's Kindle Publishing and Smashwords.  Each time one of your books is sold, you earn a royalty. :)

Please note though, that if your content is Exclusive on AC, you cannot do this.  (Read THIS POST for information on AC Content rights) Any content that is Non-exclusive or Display Only, you can put into an ebook.

Happy writing!

This post brought to you by Becca Badgett's Clearing the Air With Indoor Plants

Is AC/Yahoo lifting articles again? What about AOL buying Yahoo?

Okay, first, I'm going to address the AOL thing.  If you haven't heard this, here's the story.  From what I understand, this is not concrete.  There is more to the process then someone saying that AOL is bidding on or saying they are going to buy Yahoo.  To be honest, I know absolutely crap when it comes to stuff like this.  I don't understand the jargon and when it comes to reports like this, I don't know what to believe.  What I do know is that this is just talk right now.  As far as I know, we are not all suddenly going to be thrust into AOL.  For right now, AC has more important things to worry about.

So moving on....

Is Yahoo! lifting DO articles again?  For a bit of background on what has happened, read this.  Apparently a contributor thought that a DO of hers was put on Yahoo! recently but to my knowledge, the content was actually a non-exclusive.

Okay, so as far as I know, the feed error is not happening again BUT this doesn't completely cover all the issues that contributors have over the whole Yahoo! thing.  I've actually learned some things since that last post that I will share and try to explain.

First, giving $5 to contributors for the distribution of content to Yahoo! seems like a slap considering the number of page views Yahoo brings in and how many page views can be taken from the original.  But contributors are certainly within their right to go with the flow of that if it suits them.

Next, contributors are of the mindset that Yahoo! can't be interchangeable with AC while at the same time being a "partner" that can pick up content.  Actually, at this stage, yes, they can be both.  This leaves all the rights with Yahoo/AC and NO rights with the contributors.  If Yahoo! wants to pick our content and throw a minimal amount of money at us for it, they can. Additionally, according to these policies, Yahoo! can also take whatever else they want without paying us or even without notifying us.  It's their site and they can do whatever they want, right?  From the responses, legally, yes, they can.  While AC and Yahoo! are still in the initial stages of the "merge" or "integration" as they call it, they are legally covered.  They can pick up DO's or anything they want.  The writers of the site, the ones who are doing the leg work for AC, apparently have no rights whatsoever.  That's the way it appears anyway.  The only issue that stands out is that the original agreement means that we're supposed to be paid performance for every article unless specifically arranged otherwise.  This is really the only legal leverage we have.

So now comes the obvious question.  If this is the case, why aren't many of the more experienced writers running for the hills?  This has obviously caused many contributors to be leery; some contributors are publishing a lot less and some have stopped publishing altogether.  But while the writer's rights are minimal to none while this happens, the honor system of AC is something that has enough merit to me to continue.  I believe AC when they say they would never intentionally republish our DO content.  I believe AC when they say they are working toward integrating page view payments for content published on Yahoo!.  While my trust is leery after having discovered the feed error on my articles myself (it wouldn't have been so bad if AC had alerted us that it might happen) , AC has always paid me what they agreed to and I've not had any other outstanding payment or display problems with them.

Think about it.  What good would it do Yahoo! or AC to completely alienate the contributors, to piss us all off enough that we not only look at legal options but also enough that we stop writing for them?  AC would be worthless without continuous content.  We are the base of what keeps the site going.

There are still matters to clear up and I doubt this will be the last of the story but here's my take on it.  I would encourage contributors to continue to write, pay close attention to the rights and distribution rights when you publish, and keep an eye out on your content on any other site (which is something I hope you do anyway).  Hopefully, we'll all get answers and a resolution soon.  In the meantime, let's encourage the integration so we can start getting some Yahoo! page views!

This post brought to you by AC Contributor Becca Badgett.

Yahoo! and Associated Content's GREAT BIG Blunder to AC Writers

Because I took the weekend off, I've spent the majority of a fine Monday morning not only mourning the loss of one of my favorite uncles but also feeling quite robbed and violated by Associated Content and Yahoo!.  Because I've promised to give you all the information, good and bad, that came along as a result of writing for Associated Content (and I feel like I've done that fairly well over the past sixteen months), this is not something I'm willing to ignore because this was a huge blunder and in writing standards, I think "blunder" is actually a nicer form of the word then what I want to use.

The Yahoo!/AC "Blunder"

Last week, as I was following up on reports of a site (completely unrelated to Yahoo! and AC) that many people were saying was plagiarizing AC content, I came across a feed that showed a television review of mine.  I clicked on it and was absolutely shocked to see an article I'd written on the 10th of August on the premier of "Bachelor Pad" in its entirety directly on Yahoo!News.  The only link backs to me on AC was links that I had placed within the article myself.  My name was not even linked to my profile.  Several things were immediately evident to me.

1. The article had been a DO (display only) article and Yahoo! didn't have the permissions to publish it on their site.
2. I had not been notified by Yahoo! or AC that my article was published.
3. I had not been paid for the display of it on Yahoo!
4. The article on Yahoo! was up for almost a month, competing with my original article's page views.
5. I didn't get a Google alert for the article so I wondered how many more articles of mine were displayed illegally.

This is a shocker, I know, especially for those who don't frequent the forums enough to be aware that this is going on.  And let me just tell you; this is one of those instances that I equate to catching your spouse kissing another person.  I thought a lot of AC and I respected Yahoo!.  But to see my article like this, it was a blow.  I took it hard.  I felt betrayed by someone I trusted.  After some consideration about what to do, I posted in the forums.

As it turned out, there were others with similar problems.  DO articles completely lifted and placed on Yahoo! (such as in my case), others who have had no extra payment for articles displayed on Yahoo! but instead offered more work as a "Thank you", misled information relating to assignments and more.

Copyright violation is a serious offense to a writer and this was, in mine and many others' opinions, a perfect copyright violation.  (I should note here that AC and Yahoo! deny this is any sort of violation and I'll explain that further down.)  What makes it even worse is that evidence suggests that AC was aware of this.  They had sent notifications to some contributors (oddly I wasn't one of them) that there were feeds being tested.  I have no clue what was going on in their heads even after they found out they were publishing full DO articles.  And even worse... this practice continued.

Listen, I completely get that there are bugs that happen when testing things but when you know that something is going wrong, it should be stopped.  According to one contributor, even when this was brought to AC's attention, the response was that there was nothing they could do about it and that we (contributors) should just suck it up.  Not the exact words but similar in meaning.  Only when it burst into full force in the forum was there a scramble to make up for lost time.

The Response

I waited and fretted most of last week over the issue.  You'd think as against copyright infringement (oops, sorry, non-permissive usage (towmaytoe, towmawtoe)) as most reputable online sites appear to be, that the issue would have been addressed immediately.  But that's neither here nor there.  It was eventually addressed Saturday but I had taken the weekend off and didn't see it until yesterday morning.

On first glance, it looked like those of us who had our content lifted were going to be patted on the head with $2.  Sorry, guys, $2 for a piece used without permission is like trying put a band aide on a wound that needs stitches. 

I've said before that when I find an article of mine copied without permission on another site, the first thing I do is send an invoice to the owner of the site and I charge them more for reprint rights than I would someone who asks for permission.  Neither one of those amounts come close to $2.

The Second Response

Sensing that the masses were unhappy with the $2 insult and with outstanding legal questions, the guy with the unfortunate task of relaying the messages to us came back with a $15 appeasement gift per each DO that was published without permission.  The reason is NOT because they used it without permission but because they took so long to fix it (and it's not even fixed yet; read more).  I'm rolling my eyes at this.  An apology that they did us wrong (and are continuing to do us wrong) is in order but I doubt we'll see it.

While this doesn't completely cover the brunt of the violation that occurred, it was, in my opinion, a step in the right direction.  But there's more.

Those who were crying "Copyright infringement!" (including me), needn't retain lawyers just yet.  According to the Master Licensing Agreement, because it owns AC, Yahoo! is considered "The Company".  So in other words, Yahoo! has every right to take our content, place it on a Yahoo! page, let it suck page views from our AC published articles of the same name and not pay us for it.  In the same breath, they say that they would never intentionally do it.  At least they recognize the practice as highly unethical.. or at least I hope they do.

But it Hasn't Stopped!

The article I found has been pulled from the Yahoo! site and so has several others and while I haven't found any more of my own (and believe me, I've been looking), some other contributors have... even as late a YESTERDAY.  I don't know everything about tech issues but this ranks right up there with the huge Examiner.com upgrade fail.  The more they keep trying to put a lid on the bugs, the more it keeps spilling over.  Now contributors are wondering why it's taking so long, why there are some contributors' articles still being affected, etc.

What Now?

Do I think this is an intentional attempt at stealing articles?  

No.  I feel like this is an error in both technology and in the way it was handled after the fact.  


What will Yahoo! and AC do about it?  

As already stated, many articles have already been removed from Yahoo! sites and I hear they are in the process of removing all of them.  I hope they are taking care of the feed problem as we speak.  We're being compensated $15 per lifted piece.  I do believe them when they say that they wouldn't intentionally do such a thing but I'm still upset at what happened and what appears to be continuing to happen.  (And trust me when I say this ONLY because it's AC and Yahoo!; someone I wasn't associated with wouldn't be so lucky.)  We were violated, legalese or not, this was a violation of our rights and our trust.  As a writer, one of the biggest insults to me is when someone takes my work without even so much as asking much less not even paying for it.


What will I do now?  

I'm going to continue writing for AC with extra attention being paid to the wording of rights.  I will be leery about Yahoo! and AC in much the same way I was when they first attached to each other.  I'm only continuing with AC because I don't feel like this was something that was brought about by intentional deception.  If I had thought otherwise, this post would be entirely different.  I do feel like, though, it was with a lack of respect for our intelligence that it was handled the way it was.  And it takes awhile to build trust back up after it's been betrayed.  


What do I expect to happen now?  

• I expect whatever it is AC and Yahoo! are doing TO STOP.  Despite the legal coldness of it, I don't think AC or Yahoo! really believes that it's ethical to place our articles in dual to compete with one another without express permission from us.  To do so without our initial knowledge robs us of page views and money not to mention erodes our trust.  It is my hope that they are making this their priority.
• I would like to know why this was tested the way it was without a payment system in place to protect your writers in the first place.  I understand there are kinks but I have to wonder whether my lack of page views last month was a casualty of this nonsense.  It makes me feel like we're not valued as contributors.
• I expect AC to be more upfront about these issues.  I realize it's not the most legal-etiquette way of handling things but when you're spouting cold legalese when so many people would like a simple apology and an acknowledgment that what's been done to them was WRONG, it goes a long, long way in rebuilding trust.
• I expect AC and Yahoo! to address the other issues that have come up as a result of this but to do so in due time after the feeds have stopped and no one else is complaining about more of their work showing up unexpectedly on Yahoo!.

There are many more things I would expect of AC and Yahoo! but this is going to have to do for now.  I'm tired of stressing about this.

I will just state here that I'm really dismayed and disappointed.  More care should have been taken and the AC staffer who knew about the problem before I even knew about it but did not respect the impact of it should be counseled on identifying a real problem and taking appropriate action instead of letting it go in the interest of "testing a feed".  Additionally, I expect that Yahoo! and AC will take further care in the future and that something like this NEVER happens again.

I'm still excited about what the future holds for AC contributors and Yahoo!.  The possibilities look really promising and I can't wait to see where it goes.  If you're running into this blog and you're not a contributor, please don't let this deter you from giving it a go.  Every integration has it's problems; this just happens to be a big one.  But I'm willing to stick it out for now and see what happens only because AC has been a great place to be.
 
But I shall proceed with caution.

*Note: If you would like to check for your articles on Yahoo! do a search in quotes for "your name" site: yahoo.com or for the title of your article (or unique phrase from your articles) in quotes "title or phrase" site: yahoo.com.

Putting your current articles up for reprint sale

Because this relates to content writing as well, I thought I'd share a blog post I wrote a couple of days ago for my services blog.

Now I've just started my page on buying reprints and have some work to do on it so Lyn Lomasi's page would probably be a better reference for the type of selling I'm talking about.  You'll see the links to these pages within the post I've linked to here.

Things to keep in mind with Associated Content articles is how you publish.  You cannot offer your content for reprint sale if you've given exclusive rights to Associated Content.  For a breakdown of rights on Associated Content read, Content Rights on Associated Content - Deciding How to Publish.

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Read Putting your current articles up for reprint sale

Content Rights on Associated Content - Deciding How to Publish

I thought I'd break this down just a bit further than what I've done in the past due to some chatter on public forums that suggest this is one of the hardest things for newbies to understand. For video tutorials by theBarefoot of how to submit content and a breakdown of each step, click here.  Otherwise, here's a quick break down of the rights and how to decide what you should do.

First and foremost, you need to decide if the content should be submitted for upfront or not. You can click here for info on that subject.

Once you've decided if the content meets the standards and requirements for upfront pay, then you need to decide which rights you would like.

• Exclusive - This means that the content belongs only to AC now.  You cannot reuse the content or republish it anywhere else.
• Non-Exclusive - This means you retain the rights to your content.  AC is allowing you to display your content on their site and earn money but you can reuse the article, post or sell it to other sites if you want.  However, you can't remove the article.  See Display Only below.
• Display Only - Don't get Display Only and Non-Exclusive confused.  Display Only cannot be used if you're going to submit for upfront.  Display Only is the only option where you not only retain the rights to your work but also can remove it from the site at your leisure.

How should you publish your work?

I started on AC publishing everything as Exclusive.  Why?  Because at the time, I really couldn't see that I would have a need for it otherwise.  I could make more money by offering it as Exclusive, right?

While others may disagree, I have never seen a significant difference in upfront pay between offering content for exclusive and offering content non-exclusive.  Beyond that, I later got a gig as an associate editor for a parenting site.  When I realized that I could've reused my parenting articles that I'd published on AC if I'd only offered them non-exclusive, I could've kicked myself.  I could've made more money off those articles by retaining the rights then I could have by offering it exclusive to AC.  It is my advice that when submitting for upfront, you chose non-exclusive.  You never know what situation or gig you'll get in the future where you can make more money from those articles.  I, myself, used to run a site and was constantly on the lookout for articles on AC that I could display on it.  I would write the contributor, offer money for the article if the rights were non-exclusive or display only, and was shocked at how many people didn't know that I wouldn't be able to use the article if it was exclusive.  They lost out on the money I was offering.

Okay, so exclusive and non-exclusive is covered.  What about Display Only?  In situations where you can't get upfront for an article (like for creative writing, poetry, opinion, reviews), I would suggest offering those for Display Only.  This way, you have the power to remove them at some point in the future should you need or want to.

Associated Content Video Tutorials for Submitting Content

the Barefoot has put together a video series detailing every step of the content submission process. This is extremely helpful in finding out not only how to submit but also help in deciphering terms you may be unfamiliar with, in particular if you want to know about rights to your work. Thanks, Randy, for the work you've done with this!

A Couple of Newbie Tips

Tip #1 - If you read any information on the content you are writing, you must cite your source or you'll risk having the article declined. Even after all my time on AC, I received a decline notice the other day because I inadvertently included my sources in the "Resources" section instead of at the end of my article like the guidelines stipulate. Write that one up at a big Homer Simpson, "Doh!" for me. I knew better. I must've been super tired. In other words, at the end of your articles, write like so:

Sources: (then proceed to link up your sources here)

Tip #2 - It is unlikely you'll make enough money to live off of just by writing for AC. Look around to write for other sites. Having said this, you can make the most out of your content by offering them to AC as non-exclusive. I've made this mistake so trust me. There's not much difference in the amount of upfront payment that AC will offer you compared to the money you can make by offering the same article (maybe tweeked a little) to another site. Don't limit your options! Offer as non-exclusive!

Thank you. That's all I have for today.