Constant Content

Hello fellow authors:

I must share with you how 17 of my Constant Content articles were stolen, then posted on another site. The site where they were posted was Associated Content. And, get this, someone used my name to post, although any sales, of course, would go to the fake author.

I found this out quite by accident. I was searching my name to see how optimized my personal website and blog were. I then came across Associated Content, and there was my name and my 17 articles. I'm pretty sure my hair stood on end! I had never posted anything there (nor do I intend to in the future). I immediately contacted Chris Ross, and we spent a day getting AC to close down my posts. It was a long and exhausting day, to say the least.

Chris suggested that I share this with you, and I think it's a great idea. Here are my suggestions to help you protect your work:

First, do a google search on your name. See how many times you come up.

Second, do a search on your name using first and last name plus Constant Content. Associated Content usually comes up along with CC.

Third, do a search at AC on your your name and choose a few of your best articles that have not sold on CC yet. Do a search on Associated Content using those titles.

Here are some facts about your rights:

Anytime you post an article on Constant Content, within a short time a link will appear on a google search. That's one of the ways that your work is tagged by a thief.

Understand that once your CC article is accepted, you have what is called an implied copyright. That means that the article is known as your property. This can stand up in court, if necessary, but it rarely comes to that. No one can legally steal your work.

In conclusion, please do a search on your own name. Check out Associated Content, and make certain that none of your work is displayed, unless you have posted it. Make certain that you do not double post, since our CC articles are under agreement with CC.

Also, Chris Ross, our publisher is a good guy, and he can be trusted to go to bat for you. Have a happy day and a successful new year!

Jaye Lewis

Wow, that really sucks. Can you believe the nerve of that person? I'm glad Chris took care of it for you. I agree, Chris is awesome!

[quote="Celeste Stewart"]Wow, that really sucks. Can you believe the nerve of that person? I'm glad Chris took care of it for you. I agree, Chris is awesome![/quote]

Have a wonderful new year! Jaye Lewis

This is terrible. I'm certainly glad you caught them.

Ed

Hi Ed, It's happened to me too. Someone has stolen my name and put all my articles on AC. The bogey Annetta Holmes per the AC site lives in Charlotte.

If it's any consolation, some writers over at Associated Content have had the same thing happen to some of their more popular articles. They find their articles without a byline and without permission reprinted as a whole on various blogs and other sites.

I know of a person at FaithWriters.com (a Christian fiction writing site) who discovered many of her devotionals had been stolen by an individual who was passing the pieces off as his own under different aliases on a few sites. The only way she found out was when she wanted to submit a devotional to a site to receive some earnings from it. They told her she had plagiarized her own material!

Plagiarism is ugly and nasty. Sometimes you can lodge a complaint directly to the website that has the stolen material on it. If you can show the discrepancy in the dates the same article was published, you can show the cheat for who she or he is.

I guess if you can afford the extra time it would be wise to use a plagiarism checking site to check on the possible misappropriation of all of your articles. In my case that would be about 250 fiction and nonfiction works on several sites, including the three I have here at Constant Content.

When you publish your work on Associated Content you agree to let AC sell your work (or share it) with any other websites that they want to. It's in the small print so many who write for AC are surprised when they find their articles somewhere else.

As for someone stealing work and putting it on AC as their own, that is terrible. I quickly checked to see if any or mine had been stolen. I have an AC account under my real name so I probably won't have that problem - but you never know! Thanks for letting us know so we can keep an eye on our own articles.

I found 23 articles by "Alison Braidwood" on AC. Also from South Carolina. My, they're prolific in that state!

Have sent an email to AC asking for removal pronto. Will be interesting to see how quickly they do it.

I wonder if the solution is to sign up for AC myself? I haven't as I can't get paid, but it may be worth it to send in a few articles just to claim my name (if I still can after this has happened).

Alison

I would send Chris at CC support an email too. He may get better results as he has just dealt with them with Jaye Lewis. Plus, if he can show that this has happened with more than one CC author, they may be able to work together to put a stop to this.

I've sent an email through the site's Contact Us form, so hopefully that will reach him?

I'm now starting to wonder what the ramifications will be for selling the articles now. That's a bit of a worry.

Alison

Have just sent an email to AC's Plagiarism/Copywrite infringment team. And it's only 12 articles they've lifted, in the end, so not as bad as I thought. But still. I'll really be interested to find out if they report these people to Paypal.
Am I right in thinking that's how AC members are paid?

Alison

Yes, AC's writers are paid through PayPal. Hope they help you out.

AC actually got back to me really quickly. They've blocked the account and taken down the articles (although they say the cached articles may be viewable online for a week or so). And they've offered to help if I decide to try to track down the guilty party.

Hopefully they've sicced the Paypal police on the plagiarist as well.

That's great! It's encouraging to know that AC worked fast to help you.

AC's taken the site down and banned the user on mine too so they are really working fast on it.

I'm glad all concerned are really jumping on this quickly.

What a start to our new year eh?