Do freelance writers start an authorship procedure to recover their money?

Here is a hypothetical situation. A freelance writer completed a model paper for a student. The paper was completed according to the student's specifications and no plagiarism was found.

Nevertheless, the student decided to start a chargeback process claiming some minor mistakes. The student won the chargeback with his bank.

A freelance writer knows the student's name and the university's name (the information is confirmed) and contacts the dean to make sure his copyrighted paper will not be used in any way. The dean replies, thanks for the information, and starts an investigation.

Is it a frequent scenario? What do freelance writers usually do when they get defrauded by their clients and they know the student's school information?

I'd imagine that depends entirely on the writer and that some writers might do that whereas others might just chalk it up to experience. The exact same thing is probably true for essay companies, only I'd imagine that essay companies would be in better position to do that and have more resources to throw into it if they chose to be vindictive about it.

That's my thinking, too. I understand not paying for a completed paper that meets the specifications is stealing.

I agree, but reporting the student doesn't help getting any of the money back; it only fulfills the desire for revenge. If the writer (or essay company rep, as the case may be) believes the customer is planning to submit the work for credit, it seems the intermediate position might be to just notify the customer that the project will be useless for that if it isn't paid by a specific time because the full text will otherwise be posted in full with a date stamp in a thread titled "Free Papers" on a forum just like this with all the details about the transaction except the student's identity or school. That way, the customer would still have the option of paying for the work and neither the writer nor the essay company could ever be accused of being vindictive about it or of violating confidentiality over a payment dispute.

I've been very lucky in that I've never even had a reason to think about this before, because I've never had a single disputed freelance payment in the 10+ years that I've been doing this. In thousands of projects, I've had one client not like the first section I did and she never ordered the second section from me. One other time (last year) I accidentally used the textbook furnished by a client for an earlier project for a subsequent project instead of the 2nd textbook he sent for it and it radically changed the final product. Since it was my fault, I just refunded the whole thing instead of arguing about which parts were still perfectly usable. It was my fault for not realizing that he'd sent me two different books. Usually, clients resend me the same book (or other sources) unnecessarily with subsequent assignments when they all rely on the same materials I've already downloaded for the earlier assignment.

As far as essay company work goes, I've only had the company rule against me once (also in 10 years) when a customer demanded a rewrite that I considered unjustified, such as (typically) when they ask to add specifications or details after the fact that were never part of the original specs. Usually, once it's explained to them, they just place a supplemental order for additional pages or, if they really messed up the way they ordered what they needed, they just re-order the whole thing with a better description the second time around. If it was my fault, then the company never has to get involved because I just apologize for the mistake and fix it ASAP; but I don't make mistakes like that very often.

It also depends on what's more important for the writer or company -- adhering to their own Terms of Service (ie. not allowing their clients to submit the model work for an academic credit) or getting compensation for a completed job.

As far as I know, only professor have successfully started and adjourned plagiarism cases in the universities. Since the writer is not part of the academic faculty, nor is he a student at the university, his claims of plagiarism may not carry much weight in the eyes of the dean and the professor concerned. What makes such a scenario even more difficult to turn into a reality is that the writer who does this has to be willing to blow his cover in the academic outsourcing community because the dean, professor, and students will know all about it and, as they say, bad news travels fast. So he could very well tank his ability to continue working in his chosen profession. I know of some writers who just consider the situation a learning experience. They also make sure that their fellow writers are warned about this particular client and caution against working with the person for any reason. The student knows he stole, the writer is bound by his terms of service. The writer has more to lose if he starts and authorship procedure. It isn't worth the trouble. Personally, I'd find a way to let it go, forget about it, and move on.

Writer's can never start an authorship procedure with regards to paid work for students. What is the point? Even if the university administration takes his word for it and investigates the issue, that still won't get his payment collected. If the student is kicked out of the university, all the more he can't collect what is due him. He ruined a student's future for nothing.

A university doesn't take any complaint from a non-faculty member seriously anyway. However, they do pay attention when a current student makes plagiarism accusations against another student, regardless of whether that student is higher or lower in academic level. The professor for one will normally be the first person alerted to the plagiarism and normally contacts the suspected first writer for verification purposes. If there is a strong hint of misrepresentation or cover-up, the professor then files the appropriate charges against the student(s) for academic investigation.

It sucks, for sure, to have someone do a chargeback for something you worked hard on, but most times it's best to let it be a lesson learned. While the student can be reported, it won't really solve anything. It could make it worse (the student retaliating online) and end up risking future clients. Right or wrong, the student has to live with what he/she did. Even if they don't have a conscious now, it will hit them one day. Just press forward and focus on continued success with other clients.

An authorship procedure will only result in the student being booted out of his university, thus ending his future as a professional. The writer will never see a dime of the money from the chargeback. There is no way it can, or will ever happen. The only thing that the writer will get out of this practice is the satisfaction of knowing that he more harm than expected to the student, who is sure to be found guilty of academic dishonesty. The money? That's a loss. It goes into the losses column of the business register. It becomes a learning experience for both the writer and the student. The difference being, the writer can continue to make income and, he will have the opportunity to earn back the money lost somehow. The student? Well, it's kind of hard to recover from proven academic dishonesty. He will be hard pressed to find a school that will accept him after that goes on his record. So the undue chargeback? He will never forget how his greed tanked his chances of getting a real job with high pay. Unless he happens to be a genius of sorts who might be able to kickstart something for himself.

Authorship procedures can only work if the academic writer bothered to register his intellectual property at the proper office prior to sending it off to his client. I do not believe any writer would bother to do that and I do not believe that that the intellectual property office would accept such an appliccation. So that claim made by the OP is so far fetched, it is not set in reality. That is not something that would happen now or in the future. It is just not possible.

It's true that you need to register your copyright before filing a federal infringement claim, and there definitely are several critical advantages of registering your copyright prior to infringement (such as in relation to what specific kinds of statutory protections become available and what kinds of damages can be pursued). However, you definitely don't need to register your copyright before delivering the work, because you can actually register it after the infringement occurs and then file the claim for infringement. Some of the statutory protections and damages available for infringement of registered work wouldn't be available for infringement of work registered only after infringement, and it definitely wouldn't have the same evidentiary value (such as in relation to proving when the work was originally produced). However, the date of original production can be established by other types of evidence, just not quite as easily.


Why not?