How Your Articles May Be Used
ow, how your articles may be used in the so-called "Free Submission Content Digital World"—which refers to online platforms that distribute user-submitted articles for webmasters to republish—may not be to your liking. Your work is copyrighted in the free content world and should be honored by including your name and other information as the originator of that material. Your submitted articles are considered free content; other webmasters can use them for their purposes as long as they honor the terms of the free content site. The terms require that the resource box be displayed with the article.
How Your Articles May Be Used Unprofessionally
Plagiarism exists and the Internet is not immune. I have had the experience of having work “stolen’ or used in violation of the use terms set by the article submission web site. Another little twist that may occur, and it is deliberate, is that your link to your website may be neutralized with a “nofollow.” The click will not bring a visitor to your website.
An American law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has within it that as long as another uses your work, they and the hosting company are legally bound to take responsibility for all of its content. Through this, you have the right to notify them to cease, if you see that your work has been plagiarized, e.g. the article was published without your name or the resource box. At this time, no other country has legal digital protection.
If other webmasters wish to publish your article on their site, they must include a link back to your site as a condition of use. If they do not provide the link, they are in violation of the terms of use. Inform the webmaster (the website host) to cease and desist and instruct them to remove your article. When this happened, I was unable to get the message to the webmaster. However, links to your website may increase as the lists of your published articles grow, and so does your placement according to search engine spiders, despite dishonorable behavior.
Ezine Articles folded. Many articles were thrown into the electronic aether, and people assumed they were free content. That was not true. I typed the titles of my articles in the browser and found them active on many websites. I looked at the websites and the pages containing my work verbatim. There were no links attributing my work. I wrote to each user requesting that they remove my content. They did. One person responded, saying he was unaware that the work had an author. I thought about it over a couple of days. I could have created an opportunity for both of us by asking whether he wanted to continue using my work and adding a link to my website.
Check occasionally to see if your articles remain intact by typing the title in the browser. Look at all of the websites that have posted it and check each to see if your name, the content, and the resource box with working link are as you submitted it. Also, consider checking websites that come up and may plagiarize by copying parts of your content.
If you find that there is a violation and you wish to plug the hole in the dyke, it is best to consult a legal professional.
The suggested approach I discussed in “Getting Attention for Your Articles and Your Writing” will create variations on the same content and all of its forms will contain your name, the name of your business, and contact information. Because of the multiple ways the content is distributed, it will make it more difficult to eliminate you as the author and use your work unethically.
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