Why I Haven’t Posted with Associated Content

(My Original Blog Post: -*http://creeva.com/2008/12/15/why-i-havent-posted-with-associated-content/)

I’m a publishing cross-posting whore.  I admit it.  I don’t deny it.  I want to get my stories and information out to the widest possible audience.   I signed up with Associated Content on July 9th.   I was going to make it part of my crossposting network disseminating my thoughts across the intra-webs.   I however never actually published anything with them.  Today I received this e-mail:

Hello,
My name is Brenna and I am a Community Manager at Associated Content. I see you haven’t published anything since signing up with us.
I wanted to let you know that there has never been a better time to publish on Associated Content. AC has grown by leaps and bounds in 2008, and we’ve paid out over $1 million to our contributors. We’re offering thousands of Upfront Payments weekly, we put out new Calls for Content every day and our record traffic (over 41 million page views in November!) means higher than ever Performance Payments. We hope that you’ll take advantage of this great time to publish with us.
For our American Content Producers, we’ll be giving away six iPod Nanos to Content Producers throughout December as a token of our appreciation. Publishing a piece of content for Upfront Payment automatically enters your name in the sweepstakes, and we’ll be drawing two new winners each week starting on December 16. If you’ve a lready published for Upfront Payment in December, you’re already entered. No purchase necessary. Full contest rules available here.
Happy Holidays and I hope to see you around the Associated Content site soon.

–Brenna

So why haven’t I? Well that answer is simple.  If I want to publish with Associated Content I had to give away the rights to my work and I couldn’t keep them Creative Commons licensed.   That means if I wrote something I published on Associated Content I can not legally re-use or republish it on my site.  I also can not publish it on my site first.

This is a major issue for me.  I retain control on who/what/when my content is used, at least to the extent that I don’t want others to put restrictions on my work.   99.9999% of the time use my stuff, I just want the credit for originally creating it, beyond that do with it what you will.   However if I entered into an agreement by submitting work to Associated Content I would no relinquish that control without gaining anything since being paid is not a guarantee.

For those who do publish through Associated Content, be aware of what you can do with your own data.  If you are fine with it, good for you.   I’m not trying to say my method is the only one, it’s just not a venue I want to deal with.

To read all my other blog posts – past, present, and future – go to http://creeva.com