Hi, I have written for a fellow member of DP, and he hasn't paid me for the articles yet. It has been weeks now and he has been ignoring my IMs and also my PMs. I know for a fact that he has used the articles, I have checked with Copyscape. Anyways, I just sent him a PM (he's online) saying that I will give away the articles for free on the Freebies forum if I don't hear from him or get the payment in about an hour. Technically the articles are still mine right? Since he hasn't bothered to pay? I can give them away for free right? Since he had them for free, I don't see why other people shouldn't. What do you guys think? Thanks!
If they haven't paid you for the articles, the articles are still yours. Is it his own site that they are on? If not, contact the site owners and tell them the articles were not paid for and they are breaking copyright law by showing them. They should take them down immediately after you get in contact. If it is his site, contact the web host and tell them the situation! Let us know how you get on!
SFolega is correct. The articles are still your property if the buyer didnt follow through with payment. Unfortunately there really isnt a lot that you can do at this point if they dont honor your agreement. You can give them a negative iTrader and publicly name them on the forum to warn others. You may also contact his host to complain of copyright violation if he (she?) publishes the articles on their website. If they do not pay you perhaps you could post the articles on sites like Ezine articles. At least you could get a few backlinks (if you have a website).
That's a good idea about the article directories. I doubt anyone else will want them, even for free, if they have been published before. I was once given a great idea if someone doesn't pay for work completed; Start a blog that is just for the purpose of publishing unpaid work. This way, the people who have published the articles get penalised for having duplicate content. It won't matter to your blog as it isn't for any other reason than publishing the work! You can always delete the content if they do pay later!
If they publish them on a site that is well indexed then it is very possible that your blog would be the one that is looked upon as the duplicate. One of the best things you can do is to let everyone else know who it was so that you might save some other writer from going through the same thing
In these cases it's always important that you have proof of ownership. At that point he has to prove a completed transaction, and that includes payment, to prove that the ownership is now with him/her. With no proof you can be comfortable and free to use the articles in whatever way you like. Of course this is how I believe it works in most countries.
First threaten to do these things if he doesn't pay up within 48 hours. Then, do these things if he doesn't pay up. Contact his host to have the site shut down. Send a DMCA notice to Google, Yahoo, and MSN. This will get his Adsense account banned and the articles de-indexed. Make sure you send all the URLs of the articles. This link has instructions for reporting copyright violations to a couple other search engines. Then, after a few days, make sure the articles have been de-indexed and resell them. Alternatively, you can skip the above steps and resell the articles as PLR.
Hi All, Thanks for all the advices! No reply from the buyer as yet. Have sent him PMs and Emails yesterday. I have just sent another PM to the buyer and will wait 48 hours before taking action. Would reporting him to the web host and DMCA notice seem a little harsh? I'm not sure, have never been in this predicament before. But I am thinking about selling the articles as PLR. Can I give them for free as PLR? I'm feeling generous. Nothing to lose anyway. As for submitting to EzineArticles, since he already published the articles, won't my submission be considered not unique? I don't think I can reveal his website URL on DP, can I? Thanks again.
I understand your agony my dear friend! I also thought you may want to check this thread. http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=893077 You can definitely go ahead with something like this and we are all there to back you (on the thread of course)! But most of all I guess the guy will pay you back after all this noise on the forum. Best wishes
Publishing stolen content is harsh. If someone broke into your home and stole things from you, would you have a problem reporting them to the police? You can still give them away. Personally, I'd try to make some money from them. The only way I'd give them away is if they had a byline, a backlink to one of my sites, and the stipulation that they could only be republished with that information intact. Correct. You can if you want.