Stolen articles available for usage only

[4rumid]

I, and I'm sure others, just got an email from Support saying that my stolen article is now only available for usage rights. (The email also said that the article had been "reinstated" in the general pool, but I never knew it had been taken out. It received hits after it was stolen.)

I sent the following message to support in return, because the decision to disallow exclusive or full rights doesn't seem right, and I wanted to see what other affected (or even unaffected) authors think.

Hi Jeff,

I appreciate your looking into this situation and keeping me updated.

However, I strongly object to your limiting the available licenses for my article to usage. I understand the article was downloaded and may at some point appear somewhere on internet. However, that may never happen. And if it does, it's my understanding that CC Support is extremely helpful in getting stolen articles taken down. It does not make sense to me to limit my ability to sell this article for full rights simply because it was stolen. For any article, all you can do is check to see if an article has appeared elsewhere previously. At this point, my article has not appeared anywhere. If it appears before a legitimate customer buys it, it can be taken down. If it appears after a legitimate customer buys it, (1) there's no proof that it wasn't stolen from the buyer and (2) it would be appearing for reasons completely beyond your/my control. So I don't understand this preemptive strike that potentially hurts both CC and its authors (and its customers, who may unnecessarily lose the chance to buy exclusive or full rights to an article they like).

I hope you'll reconsider this decision.

Thanks very much.

p.s. I hope you won't mind if I post this email in the forum. I know support is attentive to authors' opinions, and I wonder where other authors stand on this issue.

Thanks again.

Thoughts?

[jadedragon]

It sucks but the article is out in the wild now so I can understand the site's position. However, if the article is stolen from the preview what do they do?

I've they are only going to allow usage sales I'd use it yourself now - before the thief gets it up - on Xomba or Hubpages or whatever so you can earn adsense on it at least. If you beat the thief google will recognize your use as the initial use and the other version as a copy.

[4rumid]

"It sucks but the article is out in the wild now so I can understand the site's position."
It may be out in the wild, but unless it's found, it doesn't exist.

"However, if the article is stolen from the preview what do they do?"
That was actually a point I meant to make. I don't think the licenses change in that situation, so why should they change here?

"I've they are only going to allow usage sales I'd use it yourself now - before the thief gets it up - on Xomba or Hubpages or whatever so you can earn adsense on it at least."
Can you please explain this? Hate to admit it, but I'm not up on these things. Thanks!

[jadedragon]

Sure. Don't feel bad. Just 6 months ago I was totally not up on this either. Now I actually blog about this passive income stuff pretty much everyday.

I don't want to take away from putting articles up on CC (clearly the fastest and best way to earn from writing what you want) but you might as well have a full arsenal of tools to earn from your writing.

If you have an article that:
1. Sold for usage already on CC (you retain the rights to use it as well)
2. Is not suitable for CC for some reason (personal account, can't get it approved or whatever)

You should consider posting it on one of the Adsense Revenue Sharing sites like Xomba (shameless referral link http://www.xomba.com/referral/777e5f7b ) To do this you also need to get a Google Adsense acct (free and easy) and add your unique Adsense code into the revenue sharing site profile.

If it is a good article it will draw search traffic and views. Then you get paid for ad clicks (50% of clicks on Xomba for example). It's pretty simple actually.

Once you are a member, Xomba has no editorial review before the article posts (it's instant). Peers can and do flag off any garbage quickly.

You could also throw your article up on a blog and add ads but than you don't get the juice and traffic of the larger site. I've tried that and it does not work unless you are regularly driving blog traffic and reach a critical mass that the search engines recognize. Learning SEO and playing with these tools will make you a better CC writer too because you better understand what the buyers are looking for in content.

[J. A. Young]

That's too bad. It really seems unfair to the writer; and yet, it would be very unfair to a buyer who comes along and gets charged for full rights when the integrity of the article had been compromised. So, usage rights only does strike me as an appropriate compromise, but I say that with some bitterness and much malice toward thieves. I would suggest we stay vigilant regarding this issue. It seems like it doesn't happen too often. If theft picks up, we may want to start suggesting new safeguards for the site and our work.

It wouldn't have mattered in this case, but one thing I NEVER do (and many writers do and have no problem with it) is place my whole article in the summary. I've never done that and still manage to present a clear idea about my writing and the direction of the article. Maybe I give them the first two paragraphs, but then I start skipping down the article using elipses to indicate my jumps. It's my little anti-theft practice, but I really feel like that's the right compromise for me. I'm sharing, but I'm not giving everything until it's paid for. They get enough verbage for a decent taste. This may not solve the thievery issue that's been going on lately, but it's something of a safety measure.

JA

[Sharion]

Yeah, they cut the knees off one of the best articles in my inventory. I'd like to kick them in a very painful place.

I envy the writers who claim that their usage fee covers their writing time spent and everything else is gravy. For me, the usage fee represents about half of the time spent. If it doesn't sell for usage twice, I get half pay.

Unfair? Just leave me alone in a room with the rotten thief...

[Debbi]

Perhaps in the rare case of thievery by stolen PayPal account, CC might consider giving up its cut on these particular (now usage only) articles as a gesture of goodwill toward the injured authors? It could be a private matter between CC and authors so as not to set a precendent. Those of us who post the full article are taking a risk and couldn't claim the same injury.

[Sharion]

I'm not sure I agree about the level of risk. I post only 1/3 of the article but even if you post the full article, you are still investing the time and would still be injured by a theft. While I'd love for CC to offer me their 35% as compensation, I wouldn't feel right if they reimbursed me and not an author who posts the full article in the summary. The loss exists for all of us who were affected.

My articles are split into two categories: usage and full rights. The full rights are articles I write specifically for CC and have no use for personally. The usage articles I write either for my own websites and share with CC, or I write for CC with the thought that I may want to use them myself at some point.

This theft eliminating the full rights purchase of an article I have no personal use for has changed my "personal use" decisions. To the best of my knowledge, articles here rarely sell for usage twice unless they are priced for under $10. So I have no hope of recouping my time for the stolen article unless I personally find alternate uses for it.

It's a shame because the article was probably my best full rights offering. Ah well, maybe the gods are steering me toward more personal use of my own creations. When he closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.

[Celeste Stewart]

It doesn't matter whether you post the full text or an excerpt - both get stolen. In this case, it was with a fraudulent PayPal account, so the excerpt is a non-issue. As far as the scraper-related thefts go, the thieves steal excerpts too.

There's not much that can be done about "customers" using stolen credit card / PayPal accounts other than quickly react when notified of the fraudulant use. A hold on downloads might be something to consider for first-time customers, but that would probably discourage sales and drive many potential customers elsewhere. Fortunately, it appears that this type of fraud is rare here. . .The scrapers on the other hand. . .

[jak]

[quote]To the best of my knowledge, articles here rarely sell for usage twice unless they are priced for under $10. [/quote]

I have sold articles more than once at well over $10. A couple have sold three times recouping me more than I would have got for full rights. And I still have them earning for me at Helium as well.

When I heard that my stolen article is now available for usage rights only, I immediately adapted it for a competitive title there, as I try to do for all articles that go for usage only. Of course, if it turns up somewhere else with another byline, they will remove it and accuse me of plagiarism, as has happened once before.

[Celeste Stewart]

I've also had one $65 usage article sell at least twice for usage.

[Sharion]

The double usage sale doesn't seem to be the norm. When I first signed on I looked at the articles that had sold for usage with that question in mind. I wanted to see what the odds were of multiple usage sales. When looking at the articles that had already sold for usage, the higher dollar articles almost always sold only once. I'm sure there are exceptions but I didn't find evidence that it was something one could expect very often.

I'd love to be proven wrong as I tend to sell more usage rights than full rights.

[Celeste Stewart]

I'm totally not a fan of usage here for just that reason, Sharion. I have had a few sell several times over though. I often price usage high to discourage customers for buying my articles as usage and thus dooming them to the possibility of never earning their full potential. I've also had a few high priced articles sell for usage such as the $65 article mentioned above.

Though I'm not a fan, I am currently submitting a few less expensive usage-only articles right now, but I have my motives. . .

[Evelyn]

As a newbie, I'm going round and round on the usage rights question too. I decided to take a different tack and set the usage price only $5 less than the full rights price. Someone actually bought one I've priced that way... and it's a head scratcher why they'd pay $40 bucks for something with my byline when they could have paid $45 for it and had the article all to themselves.

It remains to be seen if this is a good strategy or not. Personally, I've sold my writing WAY short for too long, so I choose to ignore the cheaper pricing in favor of delivering good content at a decent price. But then, I buy brand name toilet paper instead of the cheap stuff... so maybe my thinking is a little backwards.

The Internet is full of liars and thieves. It's also full of good folks who stay loyal and honest and open. I was a car saleswoman in a previous life so I'm fortified against the liars and thieves. I'd sure join ya'll in a little dark alley justice, though!

[Debbi]

Just wanted to report that one of my business articles that has sold for usage 3 times showed up on someone's blog as their own. Contacting the blog owner did no good so I contacted their hosting company GoDaddy.com, but then found out from GD (I should have noticed this myself) that the blog was Wordpress. I sent a DMCA to wordpress this morning and two hours later the post was removed. Great service from Wordpress! But what a pain in the butt.....