I have just been scammed (not paid) for some articles I did for a tech blog - techzek.com. The owner of the blog basically gave me the old "the check is in the mail" routine, and is now refusing to pay and using various insults... So, since these articles were written for that blog, and never published anywhere else, can I still use the DMCA to get them taken down? I have noticed in the DMCA templates for ISPs that they want links to my own site where the material was stolen from. But since this isn't the case, and they were just fraudulently obtained, can I still use DMCA?
In theory, yes you can. As long as you can proof you created them and never signed away the copyright to the articles, then a DMCA will do fine if located within the USA. With a DMCA notice, you do not need to show links to where the material is stolen from (that would be saying that record companies would need to have it online so they could show proof which naturally they rarely do). Make the DMCA using this site (http://www.devcredits.com/index.php?mod=dcma) and then email it directly to the host. If they do not listen, send it to the host's datacenter and if they fail to do anything, send it to their upstream provider as from experience that gets them moving fast. Do not bother sending it to the owner of the website, you already tried contacting them so keep proof of all methods of contact in case it is needed. However, if the other person does file a counter notice, the way then would be via a civil court and judging that your location says you are from Australia, it seems it will be a waste of money to do sadly.
OK thanks for the info. I'll give it a try and hopefully him or his host just takes down the articles, because it won't be too easy to prove.
so you freely gave him the articles before payment? normally, you do not walk into a store, get the food, then promise to pay later... if you want the food, you pay first, then you get to take home the food... since you gave him the articles, he could always say he paid for them.... or he could simply move to a dc or host that could care-less about such things....
Yes dscurlock... I did. In a perfect world we would get paid upfront for all of the work we do, but that just doesn't happen, particularly within the Digital Point forum. There seems to be an expectation here that people will pay whenever they feel like it. It is not the same on other forums I visit. People on other forums pay at least half, and sometimes the full amount, before I start writing and I don't even have to ask them to do so.
i have actually had to pay for every article in advance before they even started working on it. (actually i regret this as well, there are $15 articles ive thrown out... turns out that paying more per article doesnt automatically equal more quality) just based on my experience from hiring others before, unless they have alot of feedback (yea i know itraders going away) you could demand some sort of payment upfront before doing any of the work, and only deliver 1-2 articles before securing payment for all of the articles.