| Demand Media |
| Demand Media Demand Studios Looking to Form a Class Action Lawsuit based on Deceptive and Devious Business Practices Internet |
| 10th of Jun, 2011 by User586528 |
| I originally began writing articles for e-How when I lost my job writing for some major publications. I used them as one of several mediums with which to supplement my income. I spent countless hours racking up articles for them when they did a clean out of duplicates, and no matter who was writing the better article, the older dated article stayed. This meant I lost a good amount of the articles I wrote. I was down to 98 and then suddenly was told that they would be going on to Demand Media/Demand Studios and only their best writers would be invited to continue writing, though all others would continue, as per their contract, to receive royalties on articles written. I began to write for Demand Studios and depending on which of the outlets the article was for there were different and stringent rules to follow as how to write an article for them. The rules in themselves were not so hard to follow but many Copy Editors were literally just tearing anything apart and others just passed anything and yet others did actually take what they did seriously and did offer constructive critique and assistance. The biggest problem I encountered is that few of the CE's were schooled in the actual fields they were editing. I wrote many medical articles and this was way over the heads of the people doing the copy editing and therefore they would actually come to me and ask me what certain things meant and if they were "necessary" and I would have to explain it. Eventually I found Demand Studios to be too demanding, pun intended. It was tedious to wake up and have to search through pages of articles to find one or two you may want to write about. Then to go through the CE phase could take ages so your articles lagged from time written to time out there making money. One day, I found I no longer could access my e-How account to check on what royalties I was making. I did in fact contact them and get a special link and was told I had to sign in, it was their new site. I noted immediately that I was solely making money on the articles for which I had written for e-How, the Demand Studio articles I had written were not being accounted for nor making me any royalties despite being in their possession, custody and control and in use. I chalked it up to a lesson learned. I enjoyed my royalties from e-How and suddenly got a call on the telephone from someone one evening who was in California, I believe. He asked me if I had decided what I was going to do. I was a bit confused and asked him to clarify and he asked me if I did not have Facebook or Twitter. I was even more confused as I had no idea what either of those had to do with Demand Media. He then explained that we were all being given a choice to take an offer they will send us for our articles or to take our articles and go elsewhere. I asked for the link and he sent it. I was rather taken aback as I had no idea this was coming and here we were days away from them implementing this and I had to make a quick decision. I Googled this and saw horror stories of offers of $42.00 and less for many though some had decent offers. My personal offer was somewhere near $900.00 and was to be paid in two instalments, the first in June and second in July (it was beyond me as they were screwing me over why they could not just pay it out in one pay-out). Because many of the articles were dated and taking what I had would mean finding another outlet and starting over again and reading through 98 articles to see what was pertinent and what was not, I chose to take the payout, which many others seem to also have done. I expected my first payout to come on the 16 of June. Today, 11 June 2011 I received a payment from Demand Media of $24.60 NOTHING near what my offer was. I am unable to log into my account where the offer was made to me to verify the amount but distinctly know that it was $864.00 to my recollection. Why else would two payments be necessary? I have just wrote my second irate letter in as many days. I wrote my first two days ago actually and then responded yesterday to their reply. My first letter was a complaint that they changed the names on my articles to "Braniac e-how user" rather than give me credit for my work though the buyout explicitly stated we would retain rights to our content. I was advised that hidden somewhere in the long-winded agreement was a clause wherein they said they reserved the right to change the author's byline. I find this wholly unacceptable and would like to organise a class-action lawsuit. I am half American and do live in USA at the moment so do not be fooled by my European spelling; all my articles were written in American English also for their American site. I hope someone can find a lawyer who is willing to take them on in a class action lawsuit or a lawyer will contact me, leave his contact details for me or otherwise any other disgruntled former e-How, Demand Studios, Livestrong, or Demand Media writers please write your own story and please be sure to leave me a contact or contact me directly which I think can be done on here via my user name but I will need to check. Thank you all in advance and any lawyer looking to sue Demand Studios on a class action level please contact me on |
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