Associated Content is a veteran in the ranks of get-paid-to-write sites. It accepts text, image, and video contributions from its users, called "Contributers" (formerly "Content Producers"). Users based in the United States receive upfront payments and all users receive on-going performance-based payments via PayPal.

Associated Content claims to offer payments of between $1 and $20 (some writers even claim so high as $50). What they neglect to tell you is that $20 payments are incredibly rare, unless you have opted to claim an article at their request.

What they also neglect to tell you is that your pay (and the possibility of your article being accepted for payment in the first place) is highly dependent upon their editors. Therefore, even the best articles can garner payments of $1 or even be rejected altogether if the editor is having a bad day or simply doesn't like the writer.

For disclosure, I have submitted 26 articles for upfront payment. Only 6 have been accepted, at a little over $3 each (the exception here is a $9 request I claimed).

The good news is if you claim a request, unless your article is rejected, you are guaranteed the payment listed in the assignment.

According to United States copyright law*, the creator of a piece of intellectual property owns the rights to that property. In theory, this holds true for all content, including articles you have written and published online regardless of the medium or proxy.

* Associated Content is based in Denver. International writers are not accepted for upfront payments due to their lack of understanding with international copyright and tax law.

That is not true for articles which are published on most get-paid-to-write websites. Associated Content offers a false sense of protection with their license options. A writer may choose to publish his or her articles holding onto no rights, holding onto few rights, or maintaining full rights (called "Display-only").

If an article is published as display-only, upfront payment and distribution (a way to earn extra page views) will be unavailable.

Unless your article is published as display-only, Associated Content will be able to hold onto it indefinitely and you will have no ability to remove it of your own volition.

This wouldn't be bad, except for one little factor:

Note: This is secondary anecdotal evidence; I have not been banned.

Allegedly, if enough of your articles are deemed to be of poor quality (e.g. by publicly-available flagging), your account may be locked. When this happens, you are unable to access your content either through the control panel or by the main site (Instead, your article displays a shameful message).

Whether or not you will be permanently banned is then up to the whims of the editors. In this case, your content will be removed completely and you will not be able to sign up for another account to commence writing.

They also have spam-detection in place, so if you submit so many articles per day, your account may be frozen until the administrators have reviewed it at their leisure. This could take a considerable amount of time.

I suppose the good thing about Associated Content is that it does adhere to its claims. Users do get paid at a reasonable pace for their upfront-payment submissions and according to schedule for on-going performance payments. It's easy to get good performance if you have working knowledge of promoting articles and websites. The site also has a really good rank on Google and other search engines, so you're likely to get decent search engine traffic.

Additionally, they really do accept articles about nearly everything for publishing.

Associated Content is not an incredibly horrible service. It does what it says it will. Unfortunately, some "writers" and employees claim incredible payments. Even if you do manage to pull off a $20 payment upfront, this is still a small reward for complete rights to a document. If you have no use for an article elsewhere, you can pawn it to them for a reasonable pay (compared to simply throwing it away), but if you expect to earn a good wage on the site, think again.

If you want to sign up for Associated Content, be sure to search for your idea before writing the article. They only accept truly unique content. It will require a lot of creativity and knowledge of trends; be sure to jump on anything you suspect will be popular.

Here is the sign-up page (This is my referral link; I don't know if I get anything out of it - didn't find anything in the FAQ). You may also view my contributor page and be-friend me (I would like that!). I can't provide many tips because I don't actively contribute often, but I do have a sense of humor!