Copyright Claims

[virajwick]

Hi Fellow Sellers,

I came across a top buyer who posted a buyer request asking for some articles. In his request, he mentioned to write a sample article on a certain topic and send it to him with the request. Since I don’t provide any sample articles before the order, I didn’t send any articles with the buyer request. But later on, he messaged me and inquired about the sample. Since he had good reviews and top buyer without any hesitation, I went to write a 500-word sample article for him before placing the order. Once he got the article, I didn’t get any response from him. But today, I found that my article was posted on a blog. I didn’t expect such behaviour from a top buyer. Have any of you come across situations like this? What should be done to claim my copyrights?

[tiakovolana]

can you contact the website where the blog was hosted?

[theratypist]

Contact the owner of the blog and politely ask him to take it down if it was really the work you did. Cite screenshots of the conversation where you shared that, etc.

If that doesn’t work I would comment on the blog and say it was mine (I’m not saying you should do this, I’m just sharing this is something I would do). Haha.

But technically you really got screwed there. 500 words may not have been such a loss for your efforts, but perhaps nexttime you can take some steps in making samples so you won’t be abused like that. Like perhaps instead of making a sample for the topic a buyer inquires about, present already published work of yours, that the previous buyers allow you to showcase. And if he insists on a 500 word sample of the topic of his choice, let him pay for a sample.

[patrickcharlie]

Do you actually have any copyright? Writing the article is not necessarily the same as legal ownership of the IP.

That being said, contact Fiverr Support right away, also contact the seller and let him know.

Top Buyer means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, every reseller will eventually become a top buyer, if anything I am more cautious when I see the Top Buyer badge.

500 words is a loooot for a free sample, as a translator I will not do more than 100 Words for free.

Sorry you had this experience my man, take care and good luck

[lloydsolutions]

A buyer orders, pays, and then you deliver.

If you bypass this you will have worked for free.

Suggest you check out the Terms of Service at the bottom of the Fiverr main page for the rules as to how Fiverr works.

Everything is explained there in great detail.

Check this out: Top 5 Tips to Protect Yourself from Badly Behaved Buyers

[tiakovolana]

Do you actually have any copyright? Writing the article is not necessarily the same as legal ownership of the IP.

That being said, contact Fiverr Support right away, also contact the seller and let him know.

Top Buyer means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, every reseller will eventually become a top buyer, if anything I am more cautious when I see the Top Buyer badge.

500 words is a loooot for a free sample, as a translator I will not do more than 100 Words for free.

Sorry you had this experience my man, take care and good luck

Writing the article is not necessarily the same as legal ownership of the IP.

[patrickcharlie]

Writing the article is not necessarily the same as legal ownership of the IP.

Sure, if you can prove it…