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Christina Gleason, M.A., Digital Media Creator

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Do You Own the Blog Posts You Write for Other Sites?

May 4, 2011 By Christina Gleason 7 Comments

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If you are a blogger and/or freelance writer, chances are that you write blog posts (or will at some point in the future) for websites owned by someone else. This includes guest posts, group blogs, and even magazines, newspapers, and other publications. When you write for someone else’s site, who owns the content – you or them?

Work for Hire Agreements

The first thing you need to understand is a Work for Hire (WFH) agreement. Unless you have signed one of these, you are the legal author and owner of the content you create. There’s a rather in-depth explanation of Work for Hire as it pertains to publishers – the people who would be using your content – that you may find helpful.

The short version is that a work for hire must be commissioned as new work, and both parties (blogger and publisher) “must expressly agree in a signed document that the work shall be considered a work made for hire” prior to commencement of work. The publisher cannot decide to make it a work for hire after you have already started writing a post for them.

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Filed Under: blogging

Ubervu Steals Your Blog Posts AND Your Comments

April 29, 2010 By Christina Gleason 19 Comments

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I started getting pingbacks from sites like Topsy a few months ago whenever I tweeted to promote a blog post I’d written on my mommy blog. I checked out Topsy and saw that it only showed a brief excerpt of my posts with a link back to my site along with all of their little bells and whistles that justify the site’s existence.

I thought that the pingbacks from Ubervu meant that they were the same sort of deal. I was wrong.

I don’t know what compelled me to click the link yesterday, but I went to see what Ubervu had to say about one of my posts yesterday…

And I found my post there in its entirety. With the entire comment feed as well.

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Filed Under: blogging Tagged With: blog posts, blogs, comments, content theft, Web content

Blogger Brand Advocate for Hire

May 28, 2009 By Christina Gleason 5 Comments

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Yeah, I’m going there. I love to watch @graywolf get his panties in a bunch about paid links and sponsored reviews, especially in light of the proposed FTC regulations. I love it mostly because I agree with him. I’m totally in the “white hat” camp – anything I work on is done with Google’s rules in mind. It’s smart business. But yeah, I think their whole ruling on paid links sucks because of the glaringly obvious double standards. I do the whole no follow thing when I review products, but I wish I didn’t have to. I disclose when I’ve received products for free, and I’m pretty honest. I mean, look at my Zarbee’s cough syrup review.

I’d like to officially announce my availability for brand advocacy for products and services I already love. Since I already love them, there’s no conflict of interest that might arise from being compensated for promoting products I might not personally believe in. (I’m not into that whole fake thing. I’d like to protect my personal integrity, thank you very much.)

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Filed Under: blogging Tagged With: blogging, paid links, product reviews

Do Bloggers Even Know They’re Breaking Google’s Rules?

March 4, 2009 By Christina Gleason 37 Comments

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Before my introduction to the world of Internet Marketing, I had never even heard of a no-follow link. I’ve been blogging for a few years, so it’s not like I’m a complete Web noob.  But as a blogger who just wanted a place to write about her son and her obsession with LOST, I didn’t even know the Google Webmaster Guidelines existed.

I’m not unique in this.

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Filed Under: blogging Tagged With: blog posts, blogging, Google, paid links

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