June 9, 2016 at 9:17 pm

@peachpurple

Yes, it is good that such scoundrels are taken care of. However, I dont think Literacybase will do the mistake Bubblews did. Bubblews was a fail case allowing users to post anything with little OR no quality content and showcased unbelievably high payment stats. For any skeptic, it is clear that its model supported spammers more than general public.

There was a similar website “Associated Content” which was similar to bubblews. It was acquired by Yahoo later BUT suddenly shutdown forever (however, they informed all users / members in quite legal manner).

It is easy to make a simple website which can have anything but in the long run, search engines punish such websites. It is required for such websites to take care of spamming, tackle quality and have friendly experiences in order to keep themselves running.

June 9, 2016 at 10:19 pm

@thinker I just wanted to clarify that there are no such things as plagiarism laws. Plagiarism is passing off someone else’s work as your own. It’s a form of academic or journalistic dishonesty, but it’s not illegal. Copyright infringement is, however, illegal. Even if you give credit for the use of a person’s artwork or texts, if you don’t have permission to use them and your project doesn’t fall under fair use, you are committing copyright infringement. So those who think  they can “borrow” a post or even a chunk of a post, or use a copyrighted photo without asking, are breaking the law even though they give credit.

I have to wonder why you would even compare AC/Yahoo to Bubblews. There was no similarity in the two business models at all, and the requirements at AC were much more stringent.

AC demanded 450-600 words when Bubblews asked barely more than most people write in a Tweet. AC limited the sites you could use for images and required a full image credit. Bubblews had a CEO who personally committed copyright infringement in many of his posts.

I was a featured contributor in two areas at AC and also wrote some special assignments for Yahoo when they took over. I can tell you the payment model at AC was far different from that of Bubblews. Instead of churning out potato posts, all the US members were paid upfront for each post they submitted for consideration. Many earned $2-$5 for each post, plus page view bonuses. And Yahoo? I think the highest they paid me for a single 450-word article was $100.

So while people at Bubblews were able to earn a $100 or more in a month for their potato posts, many of the successful writers I knew at AC could earn $2,000 a month, much of it passive because they’d built a catalogue of quality posts. And that was sustainable until Yahoo took over and ruined the site.

Bubblews’ business model was doomed from the start because they were offering more money to members than they were earning from ads. They had to have known it from the start, but they let people blame spammers when they ran out of money from the rich Daddy and their angel investors and stopped paying people. They even targeted people in developing countries to stop paying first. They knew exactly what they were doing.