•• $80 Article contest!! ••

Hi Everyone!

Please check out this article writing contest:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=10962294#post10962294

I hope it will be of interest to a lot of people here (top prize is $50 - for writing just one article!).

Thanks
Notting

 

Scam.

This guy wants you to pass the copyright of your entries on to him, regardless of whether your piece wins or not.

I've seen this 'contest' done before in other forums. The 'winners' are actually in cahoots with the host of the contest and claim they were paid the announced prize when all they really got was a few dollars for their lie.

 

Senobia,

I am a trusted person on this forum and have done almost 50 transactions here. There are many people who could give you a very positive character assesment of me here. I have spent thousands of pounds on the services of various people of this forum.

You are a nobody who has been on this forum for less than a month, has never done any transactions here and have no reputation (apart from some negative from me, and whoever else reads this uninformed post you made).

Get out of my sales thread and leave it to people who are serious about the web industry.

Thanks
Notting

 

I'm 'somebody' enough to know a scam when I see one. Perhaps the reason I haven't 'done any transactions here' is because I value my writing talent at a higher price than some (not all, of course) of the slave drivers here are willing to pay. Perhaps the 'transactions' that come from here are being negotiated through my personal website. You really don't know, do you?

I don't care how many transactions you've done or how much money you've spent. If your contest is truly on the up and up - why don't the writers retain the copyright to the pieces that do not win? Why do you take them...for free...and use them as your own? This isn't 'helping' people, as you claimed in your post, but rather taking gross advantage of them.

 

Senobia,

Your judgement was without merit and as a new member you really should be aware that not all jobs are "slave driver" prices. In fact, I have some good-paying gigs that I have gotten from this forum and have been here a very short while - many of which compare with the rate that I regularly offer.

Perhaps you should take the time to work on your Itrader and Rep before expecting every person to visit your personal website. It's going to take a lot more than that to be successful here, as well as being successful as a content provider. Aside from that, I see you bidding on all of these "slave driver" pricing jobs - So You can't have too much of a problem with it!

If you don't like the contest idea - you can choose to ignore it!

Will

 

I looked at both threads, this is not scam looking at itrader of OP... But it has some pros and cons like everything else....

Few good things -

1. This gives a good platform for Newbies to prove that they are capable of producing quality articles. If they get any of first 3 position, surely he will get more orders based on that.
2. OP will get many unique articles for the price of 3-4 quality articles. (yes one high quality article is worth of 20$ ) though he will get a lot of crap but all he have to do some editing to make them usable...

Few bad things -

1. You might not be paid anything even though you are good writer, because you are not the best...


But Seeing the benefits it is really good for newbies and not for a writer who already have 10+ itrader....

@senobia -- If you have confidence on your writing skills and quality, you should participate in contest... If you think that this is scam, what is guarantee that you will be paid for a job which is posted in Content Creation section by some new buyer ?

 

Thank you, Will.

If you would have read my post before responding, you would have known that I included the caveat (not all, of course) in my reply. I'm very glad things have worked out well for you.

My judgment of this 'contest' was wholly based on how many times I've seen it play out ad nauseam on other forums.

I will kindly decline your offered suggestions regarding how to be successful here and otherwise because we seem to have very different definitions of the term. Being that my online writing ventures have been linked to entities such as The Wall Street Journal and USA Today - and my articles have appeared in various forms of printed media, I think it's safe to assume my success as a freelancer does not hinge upon this forum.

I'm terribly sorry if yours does.

At any rate, good luck with your scam contest, OP. I hope you find what you're looking for.

 

True..there are no guarantees. Unfortunately.

However, this scam contest isn't for me. If it sits well with you, by all means, have fun with it. And best of luck to you.

 

So, Senobia... the Question lies with - What are YOU Doing here applying for these low paying jobs if you have such high expectations? You aren't going to find any Wall Street Journal Opportunities here...

You need to stop trying to increase your post count by making such a fuss over things that are "beneath" you!

Will

 

what senobia has said is absolutely right to some extent...writers should at least retain the rights of the article they have written with them ....
I may introduce a similar contest getting hundred's of article and then ultimately gives some $50,,even then I am in a great profit...Or a better way is to claim one of my friend as a winner!!! (I may be too smart)

I am not pointing to the OP but it is just a possibility.....
SO there should be more appropriate method of launching this contest so that everyone is benefited..

 

Good lord, there is common sense on DP! Way to go.

 

I find it irritating when people use the "I have all these itraders and rep points" I am holier than thou. I have seen these "highly" reputed members build up and then go haywire on scams.

Buyer beware at all times

 

Hi, whilst I agree that Senobia is being a pain in the butt, I do also think that the question about the status of copyright of articles that are not selected as winners needs clearing up... as if they do not win, they do not get paid... and then they loose the copyright to their pieces, despite not getting any renumeration?

Can you clear this up for me?

- I am interested, have a team of content writers and I hope that unlike Senobia, my history here on DP is enough to show that I mean what i say

 

Mhmm.

There should be a more appropriate method of launching this contest.

But don't hold your breath, tho.

 

Hi,
Senobia,
ain't you doin' a hard work over here...ehh!

 

Okay I am not agreeing with anyone here or not totally, but I will say this. As a writer myself... I would be highly offended if 'anyone' thought...and the big word here is thought that they could retain copyright to my work for an entry into a contest.

It really doesn't matter what the contest holder wants or not. If it is my work, and I posted in their thread my entry and simply stated: "You cannot under any circumstance copy my work or retain my work if I am not the winner," then all he/she can do is reject my entry. They can not accept someone's entry without their written permission to retain the copyright to. It is something that even I know. You would have to prove that I signed an agreement to give you full rights to my entry if something like that happened.

So scam or not...in a moral sense. Any writer would be daft to sign over their work to someone and not get anything for it.

Unless under mutual agreement between both parties.

 

Hello everyone,

Thanks to everyone for putting forward your opinions on my business proposition.

Ok, so I am going to go through the points and address each one.

1) If you submit your article as an entry to the competition then the copyright passes to me. I will use this on one of my websites. I shall make money from doing this.

2) I have been very transparent about this fact. It is in black and white, and in the first post I made.

3) The winner of the contest gets $50

4) The person in second position gets $20

5) The person in third position gets $10

So I pay out $80 in total.

I get a lot of crap entries which I can't use and I get a few good ones.

The good writers get rewarded, the crap ones get nothing. I get reward because I get some good articles, and I pay my money to the guys who deliver, not the guys who write crap.

This contest is a mechanism for me to get decent content and renumerate the best content.

So here is the deal:

If you want to enter the contest, PM me and I will send you more info on Friday.

If you don't want to enter, feel free not to!

Thanks
Notting

 

Super.

So this means you're only going to use the three winning pieces and claim the copyrights to those. The 'crap' ones are not good enough and will be immediately discarded, with the copyrights remaining with the authors, correct?

So....you get decent content. And you get the best content. (win/win situation for you, so far) The best content providers get the prize money..but what do the decent content providers get?

Screwed?

Sounds like it.

 

Notting- The fact remains if someone wants to enter your contest and retain copyright to their work they have perfect 'legal' right to do so. You cannot say it will become yours unless that person agrees to it publicly or on paper. If people want to enter your contest, they should by all means, but I would strongly advise people to either agree to it in the thread of your contest or disagree with it. To some people it just seems like you are taking advantage of others. Even to me that is how it looks. At this point the sentence where you stated:

"1) If you submit your article as an entry to the competition then the copyright passes to me. I will use this on one of my websites. I shall make money from doing this."

Seems...how should I post this... well I wouldn't want to exactly say any names or terms on this forum. Rather let's say it's almost like you are saying:

"Enter my competition, three people will win and the rest...well it depends whether I think you article is okay enough or not and if I think it's okay I am going to use it regardless of what you think, want or expect. Basically it's not really a contest...it's just an easy way to get people to do stuff for free. In all effect I am no better than anyone else on this forum that wants stuff for nothing."

If you do not understand copyright then do not presume to lash out at people and writers who voice their opinion on how this looks. I would never expect of anyone to pass on copyright to me unless I paid for it. Not even magazines or books do that. They know what will happen if they do. They will get their little behinds sued to kingdom come. No matter how long you are at a forum or how much you think you are worth in this community...there are people that can have the best iTraders and posts in the world. Doesn't mean jack shit to most people. But some people like you, seem to take advantage of this fact where normal people are concerned. Do you know how many idiots I see on this forum that try to take advantage of others? Would you like to fall into that category?

I really do not care how your contest ends... the fact remains you seem like one greedy.... that doesn't seem to give a shit about people's rights.

Well let's not go there shall we.

Have fun!

Sarah

 

Not that anyone asked, but my vote is that only compensated writers transfer their copyright. When designers submit their work in contests, many include water marks or other intentional blemishes to prevent their work from being used without compensation. These designers aren't penalized for such submissions, and neither should writers. Seem only fair.

(Apparently Notting is technically transparent about about this issue, but just because you can doesn't mean you should...)