Spotted an interesting exchange in the eHow forums
In Response to Re: 01/11/2010– eHow UK website and WCP participants : According to the Agreement and the Terms, you only reserve the right to republish content on one website: eHow.com. The Agreement is explicitly between eHow – the “Site,” – and the contributors who publish content. If you were granted the right to republish content on any related websites, the Agreement would state as such, and it doesn’t. It is quite clear that eHow.co.uk is a completely different entity with its own set of terms and a very different agreement, and that eHow.com and eHow.co.uk are not mutually exclusive. Although, I’m spectulating your legal council has already explained this to you, judging by the actions eHow is now taking to remove publisher content. My suggestion would be to compensate contributers for the content you used without permission at the same rate you would had the content earned revenue through eHow.com. Otherwise, my professional opinion would be that each and every contributer should seek the full monetary value of all revenue eHow received by publishing content they did not have the right to publish, and to seek damages for infringement, as well.
Posted by Regal Legal
Please review section 5 of the terms of use. It clearly states that we have the right. However, one of our priorities is to make sure we are looking out for our members and maintaining a relationship with our community goes beyond a contract. Thanks.
-Rich (eHow Rep)
So according to eHow legal department (or maybe just Rich?), eHow did nothing wrong but they really want to maintain a relationship with the community. Sure, when the community is about to leave and revolution is in the offing, this position makes lots of sense.
I concur that the standard website license agreement (found on many other sites) allows the site to distribute the content around the world on the web. What eHow is missing is that writers who retain the copyright on their work get upset when their copyrighted work is used outside of the expected sit where they get paid.
Imagine for example, you wrote an article for National Geographic an sold it for “Use” because you want to include it in your book later. You are really proud and happy with your payment from National Geographic to use the article. Then you find out National Geographic gave/sold your copyrighted article to Esquire and you got nothing for it. You would have the right to be justifiably ticked off!
When we license articles for eHow to use, we don’t expect them to post those same articles up in competition to our paying articles without compensating us fairly for the second use. Having a whole other site would be great if it meant more traffic and more earnings, but less traffic for me, and more earnings for eHow and less for me does not make me happy at all.
That’s the way I see it – what do you think?
JadeDragon
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I have already deleted all of my articles from eHow.com, but it would be wise if someone who hasn’t would take action to save a copy/picture of their articles on the eHow.com.uk website.
Obviously eHow.com is working hard to get them removed. No wrong doing? Then why remove them? Hmmmm….they are destroying the evidence folks. So, if you have articles showing up at both sites. Go get copies saved. Also, save copies of your earnings page to prove you were not payed for the UK views. The statistics shows where the traffic comes from. That should be sufficient.
Snubba