Writer’s Beware (You May Not Own Your Content) aka Why I Hate Today dot com!
When writing articles for other sites, you must pay special attention to the TOS. This is a lesson I learned the hard way.
This morning, I received an email from Today.com, basically stating that my account has been disabled due to lack of activity. I was wondering how long that would take since I stopped posting on that site once they changed their Terms of Service (specifically – how they pay writers). Immediately, I responded with an email stating that since my account was banned, I would like my posts to be deleted from their website – a reasonable request in my opinion. It is after all my content (or so I thought)!
Here is the email response I received from their support team:
“The content is purchased under a work for hire agreement and rights to
the content belong to Today.com. You’ve been compensated for content
through the month of February in the amount of $_____ paid on March
10th and are scheduled to be compensated for the remaining content you
provided till _______ in the amount of $________ which will be paid
during the next pay cycle on June 10th”.
Of course, I then responded to them explained that since I had numerous posts disallowed for payment, they should either PAY me for those posts, or delete them. I am interested to see their response to my latest email. I do not expect much. The thing that bothers me is that that little blog received more comments than all of my blogs combined. Literally, I would receive 3 or 4 comments for each post I made.
I just cannot understand why Today.com would run their writers away as they are currently doing. It simply does not make sense to me.
This is just my personal experience with them. Does anyone else have a different story? I would love to hear about it!
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Comments
Comment from JT Locke — The Frugal Housewife
Time: May 15, 2009, 10:25 pm
I had signed up for a today.com account. When I realized that they would own the content I never wrote a post. Then I got a letter telling me that my account had been suspended due to lack of activity. It took a little while to get the letter but I finally got it.
Comment from buy penny stock
Time: May 16, 2009, 11:42 am
I agree with you. If they did not delete the articles, they will benefit from the articles forever. Well, big companies often do that. They don’t care what you say. ow many articles do you have there?
Comment from pfincome
Time: May 16, 2009, 9:01 pm
I only wrote 3 articles and lost interest and then got the the notice my account had been terminated. Good luck with getting things straightened out.
Comment from Rick Vaughn
Time: May 24, 2009, 4:13 pm
That’s terrible but a contract is a contract. If I were you I would make sure you get the word out to people as best you can. Thanks, for sharing your story I will make sure to let others know what a scam Today.com is.
Comment from laneerg
Time: May 15, 2009, 4:00 pm
As soon as I saw what they were doing to other today . com bloggers (see http://todayexiles.blogspot.com/) I realized that I could not in good conscience stay with them any longer. So I started my two new blogs on blogger to replace my today blogs (single frugalton and storytime for children.) I then did everything I could to get my payment to payout level by the 30th. And then held my tongue.
Now that I have received my payment (and added lots of backlinks to other exile bloggers blogs in both of my old blogs, as well as deleting all my pictures) I could care less if they lock me out. In fact, if they ever look at my old frugal blog, I will be locked out immediately due to my post there.
Neither of my blogs may have been in the top 100 (closest I got was 144) but both of them were making real strides. It just was not right how a number of bloggers were dealt with, and like you mentioned, I really did not like having no control over my content.