1b. Must Not be a Private Label Rights (PLR) article or Contain Unattributed Content to Which the Author Does Not Have Exclusive Rights.

EzineArticles is committed to providing unique article content to our users. UNIQUE means each article must be attributed to only ONE author or co-author and NOT belong to multiple parties or the public domain.

Private Label Rights article packs are content available for anyone to purchase and place their name on. This goes against our philosophy of exclusive rights. Do not waste your time or ours by buying article packs that have non-exclusive licenses as we reject those articles and they are poor quality. Additionally, do not submit re-written (even "by hand" rewrites) or spun versions of this content. It is neither unique material nor your own original content.

Why do we do this? 1) Submitting non-exclusive content makes you look like a fraud because you're putting your name on someone else's work that may already have hundreds or thousands of other authors who also put their name on the exact same content, and 2) We do not want more than one copy of any article in our directory. 

In addition, we do NOT allow PLR article content to be promoted in article submissions OR on associated links. 

Exclusive Rights: You MUST have exclusive rights to ALL content you submit. Taking credit for another author's work is a serious offense and is responded to accordingly. We verify exclusive rights for articles based on the author name associated with the article. Any replicated content that is found elsewhere listed under any other name will be rejected. All efforts are made to find a connection between the author and the content, but ultimately it is the author's responsibility to provide proof of ownership. 

If you hire a ghostwriter to write your articles, you MUST have an exclusive license that *only* allows your name to be associated with the articles produced for you.

Upon submission, every article is checked for originality. If during our review, we find the article content exists elsewhere on the Internet, we will attempt to verify ownership. This includes content that is partially or completely identical, contains similar sequences of bullet points or lists, or has loosely paraphrased blocks of text. If ownership of the original content cannot be verified your article will not be accepted. We perform these reviews to prevent dishonest spammers from ripping or scalping content that is not their own and submitting it as if it belongs to them.

To help in preventing your original article from being rejected for this reason, review the following common content ownership problems (and tips to avoid them) below: 

1. Original Source Validity - You must be the original source of the article content. If matching content is found elsewhere, we check for other factors associating the author with the content (such as company names or URL's). Loosely paraphrased or re-written content is also considered stealing someone else's work. Be careful of relying on outside information for content, even when properly cited. Prove your status as an expert in your niche to your readers by never using more than 3-5 lines of sourced material in your article. If NO connection can be made between your article and the matching content found, we will reject the article and suspend your account until the issue is resolved.
2. Author Name Validity - To verify exclusive rights, the same author name must be associated with the submitted content wherever it is found in order for the content to be considered original. If the submitted content is found attributed to a different author name elsewhere, the article may be rejected as unoriginal.
   
   If the author name on the found content is an alternate author on the same account as the submitted article, the article will be rejected and the author must correct the names to match. The author name on the content must match up everywhere for the article to be accepted for publication.
   
   E.g. Author Jane Doe has created an Alternate Author Name "John Doe" to use as a pen name in another niche. Jane submits an article entitled "Cats That Love Water" to EzineArticles.com under the pen name John Doe. However, Jane also posts the article to her blog with "By Jane Doe" as the byline at the end. This situation causes confusion for readers, since the article on Jane's blog says "By Jane Doe" but the article on EzineArticles.com says "By John Doe."
   
   This example article would be rejected so that Jane can make sure the bylines match up to prevent possible confusion regarding who has exclusive rights to the content. See Section 2.d for further instructions on adding an alternate author name to your account.
3. Publication Date Verification - If content found matching the submitted article has a publication date AFTER the article was submitted to EzineArticles.com, the found content is not a concern. Why? Authors may have content that has been republished elsewhere. If any matching content is found with a submission date that is BEFORE ours and the author names do not match, the article will be rejected and the author will be asked to provide an explanation as to who has rights to the content.
4. Author Website or URL Verification - If content matching the submitted article is found associated with a website or URL that you own or are associated with, but the author names do not match, the article will be rejected and you will be asked to clarify who owns the content. If the matching content found has no author name associated with it, the article will be accepted as original. 

To ensure your article is approved as quickly as possible and to prevent any confusion regarding your exclusive rights to the content, please place your author name on your content wherever it is published prior to submitting your article for review.