Yepic, previously covered on this site in late 2006, is a site that allows its users to “buy and sell information about anything” and enticed bloggers and other authors to sell premium content through their service.

The email, which was sent by Yepic CEO Richard Tripp, said the following:

“Just an official note that we will be taking the website, Yepic.com, down on June 8, 2008 and will not be re-launching thereafter. If you have any questions, please email me…”

It has been a mixed bag for user-generated content in recent months. Premium user-generated content sites, such as Blogburst and Associated Content, have done well while others, including Yepic and Scoopt Words, have closed down.

Clearly this field is still very unstable but it appears that there is still plenty of interest, with companies such as RightsAgent, from the people originally behind Lisensa, continuing to explore new options.

This announcement comes just over a month after Mashable discovered an author at the site plagiarizing their content, an incident covered here in episode 35 of the Copyright 2.0 Show.

This move represents a major step on the part of Associated Content to prevent plagiarism by its members and another major client for Attributor, which previously signed both the AP and Reuters as clients.

This will be a major test for both services. Associated Content, which pays money to submitters at the site, will have to decide how to respond to potential cases of plagiarism. This will have to include both incidents involving its submitters as well those involving others on the Web. Attributor, in turn, will see how well their technology detects duplicated content in a very fast-paced setting and in a manner it might not have been originally designed for.

It is unclear at this time if Associated Content will be using Attributor’s image matching service in addition to its text matching tools.

While Associated Content has always utilized human editors to help with quality control at the site, it is clear that, with so much content being posted, automation is going to be critical in effectively filtering out questionable works. Attributor seems to be rapidly positioning itself as a leader in this area and this latest deal only furthers that stance.

Hopefully this partnership will help avoid future embarrassing incidents for Associated Content and let them move past these issues.

Disclosure: I am a consultant for Attributor.