Not really to do with hubpages but I didnt know where else to ask....

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   nightnightposted 11 years ago

   I was an active writer on helium.com.
   
   I want to move some articles from them to here and just off the web. I cant figure out how to delete the articles as their policy seems to be a little tight on deleting content.
   
   Anyone know how to do this?
   
   Thanks

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      Uninvited Writerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Helium does not allow you do delete most of your articles, they let you know which ones you are allowed to delete.. The others are stuck there.

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      NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, this is why I decided awhile back not to write on Helium anymore. You lose control of your content, essentially. Here's an idea, and you might want to consult with someone knowledgeable about the rules first, but it seems legit to me: Make sure you have your own copy of the article on Helium, on your computer; then Leap Frog the article, change it completely so that it isn't even the same content; seems you'd avoid the duplicate content violation and get your article back. In other words, your original article doesn't exist on Helium anymore at that point. Then post the original which you saved on your computer elsewhere. Granted, it will take some work, basically have to write a whole new article on Helium.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         ....which defeats the purpose, really.   If you're going to write a new article, why not post it somewhere new that pays better?
         
         What I did, at one point, was go in and leapfrog some of my long articles and cut them down.   Unfortunately, leapfrogs have to be approved by other Heliumites and a sharp-eyed rater will simply reject any efforts to cheat the system - otherwise a great solution would be to leaprfog the article and just delete 90% of it!

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            NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Yes, I thought of that too; might as well write a new article and publish it here or somewhere else. Which is what I've done, just made new content and published it here. Leap Frogging would only be a good idea with certain kinds of articles, easily modified, etc. It's the only solution I've ever thought of that seems viable. Otherwise, I just concluded not to waste time on Helium and to just publish elsewhere, mostly here. Good thing about HP is you can do what you want with your work. I read a blog in which a guy said he got his Helium article deleted because he had already published it elsewhere, then complained to Helium that someone stole his work and asked them to unpublish it. That to me seems like a long shot and requires even more work. My main conclusion to all of this is not to publish on Helium.

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   nightnightposted 11 years ago

   ...so there is no way of deleting them at all? I heard that someone posted them on the internet and claimed copyrighted to get them deleted and that worked.... Obviously I dont want to do that but it just seems a bit silly to me.

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      Sapperposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      From the looks of it, by signing up you give them 1 year of exclusive rights to your content. For the first year, even though you hold the copyright to it, they can do whatever they want with it, including not allowing you to delete it. You shouldn't, however, have a problem deleting any over 1 year old.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Not so. When you put an article on Helium, you give them an irrevocable license to publish it in perpetuity.  They insist that it's exclusive for the first year - after that you can publish it elsewhere, but you still can't delete it.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Go back and read the small print on Helium's Terms and Conditions. When you sign up, you agree to give them an irrevocable right to keep all your articles in perpetuity.   They rely on the fact that most people don't read the TOS before they sign.
      
      You could try the trick of posting your articles elsewhere - but if it doesn't work, you're more likely to get yourself banned from Helium.   Then they still keep your articles, they just won't give you any of the earnings from them.

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         Sapperposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Not the case at all. Since they leave the copyright to you, you can have them deleted at any point, even if you can't do it yourself. They can have whatever they want in the TOS, but no TOS can trump the laws where they are located, which in this case is the US. Once you post it anywhere else and demand they take it down, they have no choice other than to take it down.

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            Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Interesting. I would love to remove my content there.  No one has succeeded yet as far as I know. 
            
            I'd love to know more.
            
            Does the fact that you grant them first rights make a difference?

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               Sapperposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               No, you are not allowed to break any laws with a contract, regardless if you sign it or not. Copyright laws state that you can post any content owned by you wherever you wish, so that first year is more of common courtesy than anything else.
               
               I would like to point out that in order for you to be able to file a lawsuit on anything copyright related, it does have to actually be registered, even though registering isn't a requirement for you to hold the copyright. I'm not sure what the fee is for content, but I know for trademarks, like sayings, domain names, logos, stuff like that, it's around $400.
               
               Now they may have a case calling it public domain, but the fact that they monetize it and pay you for it might get it away from being classified as that.
               
               Info on registering copyrights:
               
               http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ66.pdf

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                  Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  We're not talking about restrictions on posting elsewhere, we're talking about the ability to delete the content. 
                  
                  The trouble with filing a lawsuit is that it costs money.  And if the copyright has to be registered for every article, that would amount to a heap of money too.  All told, it would probably amount to far more than the articles are worth.  I'm guessing that's why no one has tried to challenge it.

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                     Sapperposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                     It would, but often the threat of filing a lawsuit is enough.
                     
                     With all that being said, more often then not it's not worth the effort at all. Normally it's better to just rewrite them anyways. Even with the same wording, you lose a whole lot when you lose the time it's been up.
                     
                     All the more reason to write your own blogs and only use sites like these for backlinks.

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                        NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

                        That makes sense: The more I hear from people who have their own websites, the more I'm seeing the value of having your own website.

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   nightnightposted 11 years ago

   Thanks for all the information. But I'm unclear on one thing.... I cant copy helium articles and post them here can I?

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      NateB11posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      If the articles are still on Helium, as I understand it, posting them elsewhere will get you a duplicate content violation on HP, plus I think it would affect Google ranking. HP doesn't allow work to be published here if it's already been published elsewhere. Google also looks at duplicate content. Seems to be a general rule for publishing on the Internet.

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   sparksterposted 11 years ago

   I don't think so.  I used to write for Helium but when I started to earn a decent amount of money they outright to refused to pay me - that was 4 years ago!
   
   What I have done is severely edit/re-write the articles then posted them here.

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   LindaSmith1posted 11 years ago

   Here is Helium policy: Short version is they retain all rights to your work for ONE YEAR. Creative derivaive works is the only exception. 
   
   Once that year is up, you can submit each url to google to have it removed, but Helium can block you from doing that. http://support.google.com/webmasters/bi … wer=164734
   It is not hard to figure out. I even do this with hubs I delete to make sure they do  not show up in search engines.
   
   The best thing to do, is to copy all of your work, and simply do a major rewrite.
   
   
   
   ■By submitting content to the site, you agree to give Helium 1 year exclusive online rights and perpetual non-exclusive rights to this content. The one year exclusive clause does not apply to content submitted to the Creative Writing channel. Helium does not claim copyright ownership of the content you publish on the Site. After publishing content on the Site, you (or a third party who permitted you to publish their content on the Site) continue to retain all copyright ownership to the content, subject to the license terms described herein. After 1 year you regain the right to use the content in any way you choose. In exchange for your services and granting Helium a license to use your content, Helium provides you with earnings and recognition as defined herein.
   ■Grant of license: By submitting your content to Helium, you grant Helium (and any Helium successors-in-interest, subsidiaries, or parent companies), a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, transferable, non-exclusive, sub-licensable right and license to, in whole or in part, with or without attribution to you, use, copy, modify, edit, adapt, publish, publicly display/perform, translate, display, create derivative works from and/or license and/or distribute content posted to the Site. Helium’s rights to content you submit include the right to make editorial revisions to your content; to use your name or pen name as author of your content; to use in any way the materials you submit on the Helium website or in other Helium media, whether now or hereafter created; to use for our own internal business purposes; and/or to reproduce and distribute the materials for Helium’s marketing and publicity purposes.
   ■Per above, you grant Helium: a one-(1) year exclusive online right and license (with exception to content written to the Creative Writing channel) to the content you submit to the site.

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   Marisa Wrightposted 11 years ago

   Here is the relevant section of Helium's Terms of Service:
   
   "By submitting your content to Helium, you grant Helium (and any Helium successors-in-interest, subsidiaries, or parent companies), a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, transferable, non-exclusive, sub-licensable right and license to, in whole or in part, with or without attribution to you, use, copy, modify, edit, adapt, publish, publicly display/perform, translate, display, create derivative works from and/or license and/or distribute content posted to the Site."
   
   To my mind this is completely unreasonable.  Wikinut's Terms of Service are very similar.

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