You can buy them everywhere, most often on Ebay, sites full of articles with adsense fit in. Is this legal ? You can't just copy an article and put it on your site right ?
I am not sure which aspect you are inquiring about, but here are some thoughts. If the website is full of articles, it is ok as long as the original owner has the right to display said articles. You should really get a contract in writing where the selling party affirms this and agrees to be held liable in the event of any legal action stemming from the current usages of said articles. If you don't have that, then you become liable. Sure, you can go back and sue the seller, but you must deal with the suing party on your own. Check over the website and see if all the articles have: 1. Author's name. 2. Link back to author. 3. Source cited. If not, you are most likely in some sort of violation. If these are all original articles owned by the seller, then just ignore all of this, but I gather that is not the case. If you visit websites, like mine (ContentTycoon.com), you will find articles to use. EzineArticles.com is another great site. All you need to do it cut, paste and cite the source. In other words, don't pay too much for the site you are going to buy because you are only buying labor and a template. The content is, unless original and owned by seller, free.
As long as the author or the distributor (acting on the wishes of the author) has given you/your site permission to use the article then it is perfectly legal, usually this entails giving them a credit at the bottom of each article with a link to their homepage. With my article site (no adsense to be found there!) what I do is let people take whatever articles they want as long as they link back to the page they took the article from. I hope that made some sense and went towards resolving your issue :S
You may run into the problems of duplicate content and risk getting banned by Google Search for having such content. Just be careful when doing that.
This is why item #3 in my post above is absolutely vital. Just because an article was listed at an article website, does not mean its usage is fair game without rules. If I write an article and distribute it to say ArticleSite-X, I am extending a usage of my article, which is under copyright, to ArticleSite-X in accordance with their terms. What this means is that for someone to use my article on their website, they must fully conform to the terms of ArticleSite-X OR receive permission from me directly. Furthermore, if your website lists my article and you are not following all the rules of usage stated at ArticleSite-X , and you have not contacted me directly for permission, you are violating the terms of ArticleSite-X and thus you are violating my copyright on said item.
Doesn't that depend on the terms of use in the original article? I think you have a couple of issues run together here that need to be unpacked. The first issue is the allowed use of the copyrighted article. Normally, that is set by the writer. If, and this would be very uncommon, it says that copyright is only extended if the ultimate user complies with the terms of use of whatever site it was found on, you would be right. If, however, it says, as most articles do, that it can be used so long as the links remain live and the credit box is kept intact, I would think that's all the next user has to do in terms of copyright. The terms of use normally say nothing about site ArticleSiteX and so far as I can see site ArticleSiteX has no enforceable copyright claim. There would be no need to get additional direct permission from the author because the terms are set right in the article. The second issue, which applies to the rights ArticleSiteX would arguably have, is the right to enforce the terms of use of their website. It would be common for an article site to require that anyone lifting articles from the site link back to the site. If they are not the authors of the article, however, I think that would be exclusively a site terms of use issue and not a copyright issue. ArticleSiteX also clearly has the right to copyright the things they have added to the article - their page layout, head tags, and so on - but that's different from the original article. If you are saying ArticleSiteX, by accepting a site from a bulk article submission service and posting, has some right to limit the copyright of the original writer, or to add copyright terms in contravention of the terms of use of the original writer, I can only say that I am very, very dubious. I would be very careful in claiming copyright in someone else's work just because you posted it on your site. Most of these submissions come in off mailing lists or automated submission services, and I think you would have a hard time making any claim of contractual waiver of author's rights hold up. Worst case, if you really mean to have the authors lose or limit their own rights if they end up on your site and you have not really, really clearly disclosed that to the individual authors in advance, you might end in violation of fraud, fair trade or consumer protection laws. I could be wrong. You may be a copyright lawyer. While I have a law degree, I am not a copyright lawyer, and even in the areas where I might claim expertise I am not infallible. In any event, this is not meant to be legal advice, and I certainly am not the lawyer for you or anyone reading this.
While you restated what was said in parts of your post, the rest is not accurate with the discussion of the sector. I will explain it further for you. When an author submits his work to say my distribution service, that author is agreeing to the terms, which grants certain rights to our company and other's desiring to use the work, providing those other parties adhere to the terms of our service. If you buy a website that had works of others and you do not know where these works came form, the validity of the website and the works are in question. Should the works be cited, you still need to visit the appropriate source and verify that the work is being used properly. Finally, the above was simply one generic hypo designed to get the average person thinking in terms of the law with content. The hypo had less to do with the specifics of the law and more to do with the required steps in this sector in regards to purchasing websites with articles on them (content marketing). An understanding of this marketing tool, how it works and point of reference is required as well.
[I will explain it further for you. When an author submits his work to say my distribution service, that author is agreeing to the terms . . ] It is kind of you to take time to explain it to me. Without revisiting first year contracts, I remain dubious that an automated or even semi-automated submission, perhaps by a third party, gives rise to any agreement that you can enforce against the author, or that shifts property rights (such as copyright rights) from the author to you. Since I'm obviously the slow one here, and since you have been so patient with me so far, please explain to me exactly how the agreement is formed and what rights it gives the web publisher against the author or other people using the author's work.
Ray, It depends on the site in question. I am not saying the terms on any distribution service's website are accurate or even enforceable. In fact, there are many issues up and down the sector. The crux of the matter is you are buying a website with content on it. The author informs you that the articles are not his or hers and are from "Article Websites." Ok, so now you are buying a website with content created by other people. If the content is not properly cited, stop right here. However, if the content source is cited, which means it informs the viewer where the article came from, then you need to verify that it: 1. Came from that source. 2. Is following the terms of that source. Here comes the interesting part, and perhaps you can shed light on the subject further. You need to verify that the article was submitted to the article website by the author. There are two possible scenarios if this is not the case: 1. The article website simply "ripped" the article from another source, such as another article website, and used it (and removed the link to the originating article website, but kept the author's information intact). 2. The person who submitted the article is not the author. The person went to say this website, grabbed an article and submitted it. (with or without the real author's information) So who is at fault in the case of copyright infringement? 1. The website owner who used the material. or 2. The distribution service who first violated the author's copyright and then caused that infringement to be duplicated. or 3. Both Furthermore, I have yet to see any safeguards against copyright infringement on any distribution service. It is possible to simply copy a source, add your name on it and use it. Basically the whole sector has a big sign up that says "use at your own risk." For all you know, the articles used on a website are not on the up and up. As to auto-submission, that is normally done by the authors. The author will craft an article and use an auto-submit program to send the article to many distribution services around the web. The best policy in all of this is to create your own content or use content from trusted authors.
[So who is at fault in the case of copyright infringement? 1. The website owner who used the material. or 2. The distribution service who first violated the author's copyright and then caused that infringement to be duplicated. or 3. Both] I would be worried if I were either. As for the practical question: who gets sued? Answer: whoever has money. As a practical matter, plaintiff's attorneys worry less about who is really at fault than they do about who has money to pay out in a settlement. All of which is to say, the more successful your business, the more you have to worry about. No doubt about it, there is some legal, copyright risk in buying databases of articles, or populated websites of dubious provenance. You just don't know where those articles came from, and as a practical matter you really don't have time to go check with each putative author. That leaves you serving up stuff that might or might not be totally clean. Just how much practical risk there is in terms of being sued or put out of business is hard to say, and the practical rules of the game could well change (usually in the direction of more liability, not less) as the internet matures.
The only comfort, that I see, is that the distribution service is not liable for material posted by its users (authors), which was not the case before the DMCA. Does that apply to all possible litigation or simply litigation directly from the copyright holder? That's the question to answer. So if copyright holder sues a website who used an article from the distribution service, can the website turn around and have a viable case against the distribution service who distributed it--even though the ToS specifies that the information is not validated and the user (website owner) is using at his or her own risk and user is responsible for required due diligence. I should clarify that when I say "can someone sue" or "who gets sued", I am really asking who has a viable case and not if party A is "allowed" to sue party B. At any rate, hopefully those looking to buy adsense sites will see that there is a lot to consider.
[So if copyright holder sues a website who used an article from the distribution service, can the website turn around and have a viable case against the distribution service who distributed it--even though the ToS specifies that the information is not validated and the user (website owner) is using at his or her own risk and user is responsible for required due diligence.] This is so divorced from the practicalities of the real world of law that it is getting into the angels dancing on heads of pins area. Beyond that, I don't know the answer. I don't know how seriously courts take TOS agreements. You certainly ought to put careful ones up, but until you show me a stack of cases six feet high saying they do the job I wouldn't assume that they actually protect you from liability. In the real world, you have to have a copyright holder willing to invest large green in litigation - $400 an hour or so times however many hours it takes to get the job done. In most cases, at those rates, they will be happy if you just take down the offending piece, because it would cost so much more to litigate than they are likely to collect. To turn against the distribution service, you have to have a website publisher with his own $400 an hour to spend on his attorney, plus some actual damages from having run the piece, plus a distribution service with enough assets to make it a viable business proposition even if you really like your legal claim. In the real world, ninety-plus times out of hundred, these things get handled with a letter or a phone call, because it just doesn't pay to go all medieval on the bad guys. Which is not to say that you should just forget about the law, given the economics of bringing lawsuits, because there are always exceptions. You might have a copyright holder who is fed up and really just needs to make an example of someone, and for whatever reason (perhaps your good reputation and prominence) you are the right someone. Perhaps the copyright holder has adopted a policy of always litigating to send a signal that they are the wrong folks to poach from. Perhaps the copyright lawyer has an underemployed inhouse counsel who needs to bring the suit personally to demonstrate his value and keep his job. Perhaps the copyright lawyer is not very experienced in the ways of litigation, and thinks that bringing a lawsuit based on the principle of the thing will prove ennobling and enjoyable. Perhaps the copyright holder is that very same mean red headed kid who stole your lunch money every day when you were in seventh grade, and considers it money well spent if he just gets to torment you some more. Once again, this is not legal advice, I am not your lawyer, and you need to go hire a real lawyer who is familiar with your own facts before you do anything important.