Online Articles – a Tradable Asset

People are making money from online articles. That is a fact. But the path by which they make this money has not really evolved. The articles are posted and then money is paid based on some form of a per view basis. The fact is that these articles have a value due to their ability to raise revenue and therefore a price should be able to be placed on the articles themselves. Once a price is placed on an article there is nothing stopping that article from being traded. This has happened with other forms of media for years.

Precedence

You can buy the rights to just about any form of media available. People can buy the rights to music, photos, lyrics, sounds, even colors. buying the rights to these mediums means that they are the only ones allowed to use it or someone else has to pay them to use it. These rights can be bought and sold.

Writers have been selling their stories, articles and related works for years. A journalist is within their rights to author a story then sell that story to another journalist who, now owning the story, can sell it as his own, or at the very least, sell the story with credit to the original author.

Application

As far as I can see, there is nothing stopping this sort of trading from going on in the arena of online article sites such as Triond and Bukisa etc. Until now, if someone wanted out of Triond, they just deleted their articles and that was that. What a waste of all your time and effort. If one person has written articles and decides that they want to get rid of these articles, for whatever reason, why not sell them to someone who is willing to buy them?  The person who buys them could then post them, with a reference to the original author if necessary. Or what about simply paying someone an upfront figure for writing an article. I’m sure there are plenty of people who would trade the possible dribble of an income from posting their own articles for a guaranteed upfront price. 

What Price?

This is the tricky question. Of course it is going to be dependent on the quality of the article. Also on the topic of the article as some topics earn higher revenues than others. Then it is simply a matter of supply and demand. Something is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. If you had an article that could generate $2 of revenue in a year, then I for one would be more than willing to pay $1 for that article up front, possibly even more. Where else could you get an investment that returns 200% per annum. The fact is that writing articles takes time and time is money. I’m not saying that we are here doing this just for the money – good luck if you are! But money does help and if there is a way of making more of it faster than I don’t know too many people who wouldn’t be at least interested.

Would it Work?

I can’t see why it would not work. The only issue is making sure that the person who sells the article does not keep a copy and continue to publish it somewhere else. Once they have sold it they no longer have the right to publish it. As to the question of whether it would or could become a popular form of trading, only time will tell. I certainly would like to hear peoples opinions. There is of course one way to find out if it would work. Anyone want to sell me their articles?