AOL, Arianna Huffington Hit with Class Action Suit

[Viva_La_Revolution]

Source: Forbes

Huffington Post bloggers who think they ought to get paid for their volunteer writing have been litigating their case in the court of public opinion. Now they’re taking it to a real one.

Today, a group of bloggers led by union organizer and journalist Jonathan Tasini will file a class-action suit against the Huffington Post, founder Arianna Huffington, and AOL, which acquired the news-and-blogs site in February.

Tasini, the lead plaintiff, has been a blogger for Huffpo since December 2005, when the site was just seven months old. According to his blogger page, however, he stopped posting on February 10, three days after the purchase of the site by AOL was announced.

Read more: http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffbercovici/2011/04/12/aol-arianna-huffington-hit-with-class-action-suit/

[MineralMan]

1. Defense attorney says:

"Let me see if I understand correctly. You wrote without payment for over 10 years for that site. That was completely voluntary on your part?"

Witness: "Uh...yeah."

Attorney: "Your honor, I move for an immediate dismissal of this suit, since no tort has taken place."

Judge: "Motion granted. The case is dismissed, with prejudice." {sound of gavel}

[Wilms]

6. Not so fast MM. Have a look at these two cases.

http://www.cjr.org/the_news_frontier/aol_settled_with_unpaid_volunt.php


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Tasini

[MineralMan]

9. I'm a professional journalist, and have been since 1974.

I get paid for my writing, and get paid well. I also contribute voluntarily to a number of websites. The two things are different.

The willingness of so many people to write for nothing has damaged professional writing beyond what you would believe. I have many friends who have been professional writers for many years, who are now working for pennies a word, since there are so many people working for nothing.

The voluntary writers are not my friends, nor the friends of people who make and made their careers from their skills. They have destroyed the world of journalism and sent so many skilled professionals into other fields.

My sympathies are not with those people who wrote primarily for vanity's sake or to sell their books, or for whatever reason they wrote for HuffPo and other such sites. They have destroyed a profession.

I'm still making a living with my writing. There are reasons for that. I'm no longer getting paid $1.00 a word, though, and I'm no longer a journalist. Still, my skills keep me making a living.

No sympathy. Not even a little. Your mileage may vary.

[Wilms]

12. I do, in fact, feel discomfort with the dumbing down of lots of professions via the underpaid.

But forcing the employers to pay out would more likely lift your boat. Why pay the unskilled when they can hire the real deal?

While a contract for pay is one thing, I imagine copyright is quite another. Did these bloggers sign away their copyrights?

[MineralMan]

20. I don't know if they signed away copyright. It doesn't matter,

really, though. Most of the stuff on HuffPo was of momentary interest, so copyright is pretty worthless, since there's no enduring value to the output - assuming there was much value in the first place.

The boat you mention has sailed and is not coming back. Writing has been devalued forever by what has happened since about 2000. I'm still able to make a living, but that's a different matter. Not as a journalist any longer, but as a journeyman wordsmith. It's sure not as much fun, though.

[EFerrari]

19. The entire business model has collapsed and you blame writers?

Not all that surprising. :)

[MineralMan]

23. The demand for written content has never been larger.

Free content, however, has lowered the market value, and that is in large part due to the willingness of so many writers, of varying abilities, to write for nothing.

So, yes, I do blame the writers who have devalued their own worth, such as it may be.

As I said, I'm still making a living by writing. But I'm working out of traditional markets these days, and have skills that are marketable. Those skills were honed by many, many years writing for a very demanding market. I've simply moved them into other areas.

Have a very nice day for yourself.

[EFerrari]

26. No, it's not the willingness of writers to be unpaid that tanked

the market. It was internet advertising. The whole country is a graveyard of papers and magazines that have gone under.

[SpiralHawk]

42. Hello? Did you read MM's responses? Apparently not.

The internet advertising would draw NO EYES if there was NO CONTENT. Writers who produce free content undermine the careers of professional writers. The papers and mags may go to the graveyard because of the Net, but the Net STILL NEEDS CONTENT.

Those who willingly write for free or damn little -- for Huffington (R) for example, shoot the shit out of other peoples' livelihoods, just as carpenters who will agree to work for shit wages undermine carpenters who ask a living wage. It's really not that difficult a concept.

In a related matter, right now the Republicons are on a full-scale crusade to destroy unions, and they have the RepubliRabble convinced that -- rather than asking for a living wage themselves, they ought to PULL DOWN to their poverty level anyone who is actually making a fair wage.

Shock & Awe (R), Baby. Support it at your own peril.

[EFerrari]

43. I sure did and that narrative puts the cart before the horse.

The layoffs and downsizing started BEFORE out of work writers started writing for free on the net between gigs.

MM seems to believe that only unskilled yokels, unlike himself, write for free on the net. That is, of course, as wrong as possible.

And, btw, blaming workers is not a very successful organizing strategy.

[MineralMan]

45. Unskilled yokels? Really?

Nice insult. Enjoy yourself. I write for free when I want to. The rest of the time, I'm highly paid for my writing. That lets me write for free on sites like DU. Some folks write for free just to see their words. Others write for free because nobody's paying and they want to stay in practice. The result is the same.

[EFerrari]

48. You might try rereading my post with some of those years worth of experience.

[MineralMan]

49. No thanks. I saw my error. I just haven't edited it yet.

Now I've edited. It wasn't me you were insulting. But you were still throwing out an insult. Feh!

[harmonicon]

53. So you got paid to write this that I'm responding to?

if not, I hope the dissonance between your message and its medium isn't such that it causes you severe mental anguish.

[JackRiddler]

80. YOU are the reason the New York Times can't hire writers!!!

Why doesn't all this Web rabble just SHUT UP and let the paid professionals put out the copy-edited, polished propaganda WITHOUT ALL THIS ALL-CAPS SHOUTING AND EMOTICON NONSENSE, like was the case in the happy days before the Web?

[harmonicon]

82. ?! nt.

[JackRiddler]

85. My joke's a failure I guess. (I was agreeing with you.)

[ronnie624]

92. It wasn't a failure.

I got it and found it highly amusing.

[JackRiddler]

93. Amusing?! You call that a "joke"? I wasn't even paid to write it!

Thanks, ronnie. You are a credit to your 623 predecessors.

[harmonicon]

99. sorry

Reading a lot of the replies here, it's surprising/confusing to read what some people think.

[wordpix]

77. I agree, MM, and I refuse to write for free unless it's an occasional op-ed

to expose a politician and corruption/waste of tax $$. Volunteering my free speech services is what I feel is necessary sometimes, but I would never, ever sue after the fact and say someone should have paid me way back when.

[JackRiddler]

90. You're writing for free right now. Or did you get paid for the post?

[robinlynne]

65. Thank-you from a photographer now quasi replaced by free photos online....

Edited to add: It is not the photographers I blame. It is the corporations profiting from this crap. It is unbridled, unfettered extreme capitalism. at its worst.
yes I do believe you can have "humanized' capitalism. All you have to do is keep the gap between classes very very small. The smaller, the better.

[JackRiddler]

81. I made most of my money translating, now largely replaced by these un-idiomatic Google translations.

This is not an argument against translation software, however.

When a technology appears that renders past ways of making a living impossible, and the technology on the whole is judged as good and used by the very same people whose prior livings have been made impossible, that's an argument for rethinking how incomes are distributed in the whole of society, maybe even for a universal minimum wage, but not really for thinking there's a magic way to maintain the old income flows with the new technology.

[robinlynne]

88. agreed.

[TheWraith]

28. Can I get a "hell yeah" from the audience?

"The willingness of so many people to write for nothing has damaged professional writing beyond what you would believe. I have many friends who have been professional writers for many years, who are now working for pennies a word, since there are so many people working for nothing."

I've been doing technology journalism for almost nine years, much of that with one organization and a few of their websites. A little over two years ago, I was salaried with them, and had been promised a promotion to editor of my own site within the year. Post meltdown, that went away, and I've been trying to freelance ever since. But in an era where the internet makes everyone think that they're a writer, or qualified to communicate, it's ridiculously hard to get any kind of respect for the idea of writing for cash.

[MineralMan]

40. It is hard for writers to get respect, because a lot of the consumers

of writing can't tell the difference between skilled writing and relatively unskilled writing. They don't care about quality, so they're unwilling to pay for it. There are niches, though, where high quality writing is still valued. They're just hard to find or you have to convince people that the quality of content on their site makes a big difference in the effectiveness of their sites. It can be a tough nut.

[EFerrari]

44. It's always been hard for writers to get respect. That's not new. n/t

[MineralMan]

47. So it has. Just as I said.

What could be your point? Those who got respect used to be paid handsomely. I was one of them. I'm still paid well, but had to switch to another type of writing.

Where I'm writing now, I still get that respect, and decent payment, although not what I used to get.

[merh]

70. So, let me get this straight.

In your eyes, writers who get paid for their writings are well respected and noble. Those who write for the sake of writing, those who simply want to share their thoughts and ideas, who write to express themselves are pathetic and to be scorned and hated?

Being paid for one's work does not automatically mean that the work is all that great or that the writer is that respected (or even deserves respect).

Writers who are not paid may write just as wonderfully as you claim to write, they just have not had the opportunities that you have known that provided that they receive payment for their words.

That has nothing to do with their talents or your talents, that has nothing to do with their morals or your morals. It just is what it is.

Personally, in my mind, those who write for the sake of writing and sharing their words and thoughts with others are better people than those who insist their words are worth money. Some do it for the love of doing it and others do it for the love of money.

Your mileage appears to vary.


On topic, I am not sure the plaintiffs have a valid claim as they volunteered to write for free. That has nothing at all to do with the caliber of their writings. That has nothing at all to do with the demise of magazines and newspapers.

[TheWraith]

98. Do you demand respect for replacement workers during a strike?

Hiring lower paid, less qualified writers, or exploiting people who are willing to contribute for free, isn't substantially different than exporting your labor needs to China, and producing a cheaper, shoddier product because of it. You're free to believe that there's absolutely no reason someone working for free can't produce the same quality as someone who has been doing it professionally for years or decades. But that belief doesn't have a lot to back it up.

Yes, there's people who write for the sheer fun of it, and some of them are good. But then you have places like Huffington Post, which systematically exploit the good and the bad alike in order to generate content that they make money off of. And that's not even going into the fact that most people who write for fun are NOT good at it. If someone sits on a street corner giving away finger paintings, does that make them more noble than someone who deservedly makes a living doing serious artwork?

And yes, this does have everything to do with the demise of newspapers and magazines. Because as more and more media outlets got bought up, their parent companies squeezed salaries and hiked prices. Qualified writers, whose skills were worth more than a pittance, left, and were replaced by cheap hacks who had nowhere else to go. Quality went down, circulation went down, leading to more cost cutting and more price hikes.

[merh]

101. No one hired the folks and asked them to post at HuffPo.

They did that on their own. They volunteered.

The writers and bloggers that HuffPo hired to write were paid and probably had contracts. They didn't volunteer, they were staff and they were asked to participate - expected to perform.

I never posted nor do I believe that someone working for free can't produce the same quality as someone who has been doing it professionally for years or decades. That would be the position of the person I replied to.

I believe people who blog for free, who take the time to express themselves on the internet can be just as talented as anyone who is paid for their words. Lately, reading the words of some well paid professional writers makes me believe that the blogsphere is full of more talented people who write for the sake of expression. They don't write to get paid. They may write with the hopes of one day someone offering them a paid job, but that is not the same as having a job or expecting the pay because they write.

I disagree with you relative to the demise of the print media. The outlets would not have been looking to be bought out had it not been for the expense of publishing and the lack of people buying their publications. The internet and electronic media have made the print media obsolete, just as the print media made smoke signals and town cryers unnecessary. The media has stopped worrying about quality and has focused on the audience numbers, they don't care about journalism, they care about profits and selling advertisements and having followings.

You cannot blame a blogger who posts for free on some internet board for the demise of mags and newspapers that is just silly.

[TheWraith]

102. Media outlets weren't "looking" to be bought out, they just WERE bought out.

For the same reason that most small companies are bought out: because a larger company needed something to do with their money, rather than pay taxes on it, or give it to the employees.

No, nobody rounded up HuffPo's free contributors and forced them to write. But the fact remains that HP and others are exploiting cheap labor to replace highly skilled professionals. The fact that some people are willing to do it free for the ego boost doesn't change the fact that it's not that different from outsourcing to an underpaid foreign country. And the fact that once in awhile, someone out there is qualified to actually do the job doesn't change the fact that like outsourcing, what you get back is almost always substandard. As MM said, many people can't tell the difference between quality and crap--partly because they believe what they read, and a big portion of producing quality is being RIGHT about what you write.

[JackRiddler]

100. This may be your experience with your "consumers," but it hasn't been mine with my readers.

[Bluenorthwest]

29. Wow.

So you would probably take exception to someone talking about how there are in fact thousands of people wanting writing jobs, willing to work for far less than some? For every keyboard, there are thousands of sets of fingers ready and able to put words out on demand. This is a fact. In my field, it is sort of a running joke that nearly everybody considers themselves to be a writer.
I've heard this sort of thing said around virtually every strike or stand taken by creative professionals, most recently about the Detroit Symphony strike. Which got settled without calling in the droves of musicians waiting to play for so much less. Some said that the cheaper musicians would be just as good, no one would notice.
I don't think it is any different for writers, musicians, or other creative professionals. This is why we all have to hold that line. Just something to think about.

[MineralMan]

39. Actually, no, I wouldn't take exception to that. In fact, I'm the

very person who wrote what you said about the Detroit Symphony, as you clearly know. You can say it, you know. That wouldn't be a callout, actually, and I'd be answering just as I am in this post The Detroit Symphony musicians took a big pay cut to keep playing there. Had they not done so, others would have filled those positions, just as I said in the thread to which you refer. I have also taken a deep pay cut to do what I do for a living. Most of the reason for that is just what I said above. I'm lucky. I can continue to make my living doing what I do. Many people have not had that good fortune or were not able to adapt to the changing marketplace and find a niche for themselves.

The reality is that the Internet is paying me for a living. I don't write the same things I used to, and I have to write a lot more words to make my living now. But, I'm not working for a content mill or any such thing. I write for free only when I am writing for myself. Today, I'm writing the entire content for new and restructured business websites, for businesses ranging in size from home improvement contractors to companies of global scale. I work with a very talented web designer and SEO specialist. The reason I get paid well is that the sites we build increase the trade of the companies we do it for by large percentages. We charge a lot of money for these websites, and most of our business comes through word of mouth. Right now, we are booked up for most of the rest of the year. We turn down as many sites as we take on, usually for ethical reasons or because the business is doing something against either of our principles.

That's my new niche. I don't have to work 40 hours a week, and I'm making an amount that suits me just fine. I'm no longer paid by the word, but by the contract. So, the Internet is working for me, even though it ended my journalism career. :shrug:

[katty]

8. if you choose to write on a voluntary basis/understanding and

continue to do so, it will be, to say the least, difficult to defend your position.

[MineralMan]

10. Yup!

[EFerrari]

21. Not if the site owner represented to you

that she would not undertake to profit from your work except by, say, ads on the site.

[wordpix]

78. this writer had 6 yrs. to stop writing for HuffPo and NOW says the org profited

without cutting him into the profits?

:crazy:

[progressoid]

16. Yeah, I'm gonna sue Facebook for profiting from all my witty comments

[MineralMan]

24. Good luck with all that.

:rofl:

[JackRiddler]

31. The case takes place in a court, not in your imagination. Tasini knows what he's doing.

Tasini already reached a big settlement in an earlier class action on behalf of creators against the New York Times.

Furthermore... let's adapt your script to what will really be argued.

"Ms. Huffington, let me see if I understand correctly. You ran a site with volunteer writers for 10 years. They created your site for you. No contracts were ever signed. No writers were paid. Your claim was that publication alone was worth it, given the political value of the site, the writers should be glad to participate. And then, one fine day, you were able to sell the site for $310 million dollars. But none of the writers ever received any portion of that, although their work created the site."

Ms. Huffington: "Uh... yeah."

(Probably she'd do better than that, but since I'm mirroring your silly script, why not?)


Now what would follow is not the poorly-scripted movie you seem to like playing in your head (but unfortunately also choose to share with us, genre: "pornography of power"). So there wouldn't be a gavel falling and it would take another 30 or 300 court-hours before the ruling went to the plaintiffs. More likely, of course, is that a settlement would be reached.

Sorry if that's not Hollywood and pat enough for you. I know certain breeds of important professional writers depend on giving their audience simplicity, even when contrary to fact.

[merh]

72. I don't believe your facts are accurate.

Some of those who write on HuffPo are paid. She has/had a paid staff of writers and editors and assistants and the like.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/10/huffington-post-bloggers_n_821446.html

[JackRiddler]

73. The vast majority of content on HuffPo was never paid for.

And it was provided without written contract. The plaintiffs will argue that this content contributed to the value for which HuffPo ultimately was sold to AOL. HuffPo is very likely to agree to a settlement.

HuffPo has a paid staff producing a part of the content, yes. They will have been under contract, and cannot make a case for payment. This is immaterial to the action brought by Tasini.

[merh]

75. The content is not what is of value

It is the place where folks want to post their words that is of value, the more who come to read and post the more the money the ads generate.

No one asked the bloggers to blog there. There are plenty of other places to post words on the internet.

The fact that the huffpost had a paid staff of reporters, writers, researchers and editors is not immaterial. It totally destroys your attempt at clever post that you believe proves your point and makes Tasini's case.

Consider HuffPo to be like DU, it is at will. I don't have to follow Skinner's rules and I don't have to post here. Skinner has not charged me and I am free to come and go as I like. My leaving will not impact DU, there are others who will fill the void. There were plenty of people willing to blog freely and frequently at HuffPo. HuffPo owes them nothing. They got the exposure they wanted. If they didn't want the exposure they would post at some lone blog that doesn't have the traffic HuffPo has.

I know what the plaintiffs will argue, their arguments are just opinions and I don't believe they will have the facts on their side that can prove their worth.

[JackRiddler]

79. Fine, you're arguing for the defendant and think you've "totally destroyed" the plaintiff.

Now unless you want to go to trial on this thread, which may involve several more volumes worth of discovery than either of us is willing to attempt, we can see how the case goes.

If there's no quick settlement I expect there will be a lot of contention over

- what constitutes a blog as opposed to an article,
- what constitutes solicitation of content as opposed to providing a platform for voluntary provision of content,
- what constitutes contract in the context of an open publishing platform
- how much page-views for each author matter and contributed to the value that led to the eventual sale price,

and perhaps other issues that have yet to receive fixed definitions or precedents in case law, and that may in fact be very resistant to such clarity, given the unaccustomed and complex forms of a still-young medium. (It's unlikely to have any impact on discussion boards like DU, by the way, because of its very different form and also because all DU revenue probably works out to a couple of dollars per content provider.)

From your posts I expect you think the case will be as clear as "it was AOL's money and now it's HuffPo's and both have their property rights to it, case closed, no third-parties need complain" which is an absolutist view that may or may not apply.

I think it likely these issues won't be resolved, because HuffPo will discover they can spare 20 or 30 million for a settlement, and may have even considered in advance that this kind of tort would come up and planned to take the loss so as to avoid the consequences of precedents that don't define the terms to the advantage of their business model (such as it is!). AOL and HuffPo (keep in mind they have a partnership now, so AOL's view is relevant) will also want to avoid the digging into their shady histories and practices that may come into the spotlight, whether or not these will be directly relevant to the case.

[merh]

83. Where the hell do you get the conclusions found in your reply?

I have not said a thing that would lead one to believe that I have "totally destroyed" anyone. I simply posted:

"I know what the plaintiffs will argue, their arguments are just opinions and I don't believe they will have the facts on their side that can prove their worth."

I think you need to work on dealing with reality and keeping your emotions in check. They seem to be interfering with your ability to rationally review the issues.

HuffingtonPost was a place that attracted people to come and write on their board. Just like DU. If the DU admins sold the site for millions do you think we would have some claim to the profits because they allow us the use of their board?

HuffingtonPost is a huge building with blank walls that graffiti artists have added color to. Because of its location and availability, because the owners allow the graffiti artists the opportunity and the freedom to express themselves, many of the same graffiti artists continue to paint on the walls and hundreds of others come to paint. They want to have their art seen (their words read), they want to express themselves. Some folks come to view the building because of the paid artists or the borrowed works (the reprints of other publication articles) and as a result many of the unpaid artists have their work seen and they are allowed to paint on the walls.

Then the building is sold to new owners. Those artists who voluntarily paint on the walls are not entitled to any of the profits from the sale. No one made any promises to them, no on made them paint on the walls. They freely expressed themselves and made their work public - they gave it away.

The new owners of the building can white wash the entire building and ban any expression or color, that is their right. They get to do what they want and if the audience doesn't like it, they get to leave.

The shady dealings of AOL or the owners of the building have nothing at all to do with the fact that the people who freely give away their work do not have a claim to profits that may be realized either directly or indirectly from their art. That is just the way things work.

[JackRiddler]

84. I've been civil to you and it's sad that you resort to characterizations by remote viewing.

Your prior posts argue for the defendants' case and "totally destroys" is your phrase.

You didn't respond to the points in my last post and instead presume to tell me how I must be feeling. Your resort to ad hominem ends this discussion. I always say the same thing at this point: any readers other than us can follow our exchange and decide what they think. Thanks for playing.

PS - I even liked this post by you:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4810947&mesg_id=4811757

[merh]

91. The "totally destroys" comment I made was not about the plaintiffs' case

It was about your nonsense argument that no one was paid to write or post at huffington post. The facts do destroy your nonsense argument, your weak attempt at clever that not only left out the facts, it was made in an effort to mock another.

You are the one who has been pissy, I have simply responded in kind. I have given what you have been handing out. The only difference is, I have used facts and have put emotions aside.

The bloggers gave freely and huffpost took as was given. The bloggers cannot come back now and say "we really wanted to be paid". It just doesn't work that way.

And I did respond to your post - you have not responded to mine, you just decided you wanted to attack.
If you cannot take the heat (or argue with the facts and using reason) then stay out of the kitchen.

[some guy]

50. ha ha ha ha

You're a professional journalist?

Your scenario ignores basic facts. HuffPo didn't start until almost mid-2005. So nobody wrote for it "without payment for over ten years"

[joshcryer]

74. Nice burn.

:rofl:

[snooper2]

2. I'm still waiting for Skinner to pay me for all my witty commentary here

:rofl:

[SpiralHawk]

4. It will be included in the check for your beer money & travel expenses

You can start standing in line at the mailbox right now...

[msanthrope]

35. Godamn it, don't bring him on this thread....n/t

[progressoid]

64. Hahaha.

Beer money and travel expenses!

:rofl:

[hlthe2b]

5. We're all still waiting for the "witty commentary"....

:evilgrin:




I keed I keed....

[Wait Wut]

7. Class Action Suit!!!

DU, Dkos and TPM...here we come!

Totally not serious. I love all you guys. I would never be that much of an ass.

:loveya:

I could possibly consider going after Tea Party Nation and Conservative Underground, though. But, would have to blow mah covah.

:hide:

[JackRiddler]

32. Did Skinner sell Democratic Underground for $300 million?

[snooper2]

36. yes, but I hear 97% of that money came from the DoD, (via Obama)

They wanted to have full control and rights over all the content in the Sept.11 forum.

[MilesColtrane]

46. DUzy Awards aren't bringing what they used to on Ebay.

I'm going to start trying to market them as "deluxe chrome wheel chocks".

[SpiralHawk]

3. Folks likely wanked off now that Huffington is out of the closet as a full-on RepubliCorp catapult

I mean, what honorable wouldn't be pissed to find out that they are serving a RepubliCorp propaganda division in it's war against America?

[MineralMan]

11. She was always a Republican. Always. I knew her in

California. She was a Republican then, too. I can't believe how many people she deceived.

[SpiralHawk]

13. Going occult is a Republicon speciality. Huffington is just now being exposed

as having hard-core Republicon Family Pharisee Values...

[AsahinaKimi]

17. Whats that old saying ?

A tiger never changes its stripes...

[harmonicon]

54. Deceived? Wasn't she a vocal McCain supporter? nt.

[closeupready]

14. I wonder if anyone will notice.

Well, looks like it was noticed, Arianna.

[SoapBox]

15. Hahahahahaha!

...I was banned from HP for asking them why they would post so many articles
about Palin and her family.

I'll never ever look at the site again.

And the lawsuit? Hahahaha! Sue Baby Sue!

[Tarheel_Dem]

18. ....

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Arianna, "the prophetess" took her 30 pieces of "corporate" silver and left the PL hanging. Because in the end, it always was, and always will be about the $$$, no matter which side of the political spectrum you happen to write for. I think it's a hoot!
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[BillyJack]

27. You've got that write! ;-) N/T

[msanthrope]

37. Barnum. Pure Barnum. n/t

[JJW]

22. I repeatedly called it the Palin Post

The person who should sue is Sarah Palin as she has been the main money generator, getting unwarranted coverage and endless comments from the peanut gallery there.

Arianna's Huff & Puff Post was (is) mind numbingly tabloid garbage.

[leveymg]

25. It's the shareholders who should be suing AOL over this deal.

How anyone could value that Huffing Prostitute's website at $300 million-plus? That's a crime that should be in the fiction section, only it's too strange a story, and no publisher would print it.

[EFerrari]

30. The HuffHo is like every other institution in this culture any more.

Built by progressives, catered to the right wingnuttery, and profited the rich by bilking everyone in sight.

[fredamae]

68. Thats why I left HPO last year.

[JackRiddler]

33. Now ain't that the truth. Thanks for a laugh.

[Corruption Winz]

34. If you don't want to work for free, don't work for free. n/t

[harmonicon]

55. +1: couldn't have said it better myself. nt.

[JackRiddler]

58. If you don't want to be noticed exploiting free patsies, don't sell their work for $300 million.

[msanthrope]

38. Arianna can claim there was nothing worth paying for,

and she would be correct.

[MineralMan]

41. Based on much that was posted here from that site,

you're absolutely right. There was no discrimination as to quality on HuffPo, and that really didn't matter to a lot of people, who took anything posted there as gospel. The only time I ever saw anything from that site was here on DU. I do not like Huffington.

[msanthrope]

57. One wonders when some posters here figure that out about FDL.

Opportunist looking to make a buck, one breathless click at a time.

[Tarheel_Dem]

60. You mean that rag run by Hampster & Grover Norquist?

:rofl:

[msanthrope]

62. Yes--the breathlessly quoted, poorly sourced revenue maker for

poutrage....

As I said before--Barnum. Pure, unadulterated Barnum.

[MineralMan]

66. I have no idea. Some already have, though, I'm sure.

[JackRiddler]

59. not any more, actually. not by the rules of the market.

[msanthrope]

63. Oh, please--they still have woo by the shitload. n/t

[JackRiddler]

71. How is that relevant to the price AOL paid?

That they're suckers, I'm sure we all agree. And I never liked the Huffpo.

Nevertheless, all that woo or whatever fetched a price.

[Hannah Bell]

51. good,

[JackRiddler]

94. Best comment here and very wise of you not to get into the muck...

of all the petty class ressentiments evident here in the (strictly imagined) divide between Important Paid Writers and Illiterate Internet Rabble.

[peacetalksforall]

52. Since she started the Post I would not rave about it or even go to it. I felt out of it compared

to all the glowing posts about the Post. I carried resentment from her million appearances on right wing television contributing substantially to the takedown of the Clintons. I thought that one day she would say something that would prove her to be a convert. It never happened. I think I was right.

As to an earlier claim - I may have gone to the site about once a month on recommendation. I have no problem with anyone/everyone who believed her and in her.

[Name removed]

56. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dappleganger]

61. Arianna is nothing but a corpoRAT hypocrite.

[Keith Bee]

67. Given HuffPo's bloggers.....

...good luck getting paid!

[closeupready]

69. For what it's worth, I can never wean myself from DU, but I was gone from HuffPost 100% in two days

or so and haven't been back in months since this all started, and further, it wasn't a challenge AT ALL to go cold turkey. Don't miss that site at all, but I would definitely miss DU.

[Kat45]

76. Jonathan Tasini used to head the National Writers Union

I remember meeting him when I was a member, and that's when they had that lawsuit against the New York Times. So this is nothing new for him.

[Akoto]

86. I'm no lawyer, but I don't see how they have a case.

At the time, they provided their services to Huffington Post on a voluntary basis. They volunteered to do it, which means they were knowingly writing without any expectation of turning a profit. The medium that is HuffPo was sold, and the old content happened to come attached to that.

It sucks that they get nothing while Arianna rolls in the dough, but unless there was some contract in place, I don't get how they're owed back pay.

[JackRiddler]

87. Prediction: Huffington will settle, come up with a set of rules for sharing revenue with writers.

Writers there henceforth will work under some kind of contract arrangement linking page-views or another measure of reader interest to a revenue sharing arrangement. The net pickings per writer will generally be meagre. A more select class of writers will work on assignment and under contract per publication.

They won't want a trial to decide questions like the following:

- To what extent does an open platform publisher solicit content? What constitutes solicitation as opposed to providing an open platform that volunteers happen to use?

- What were the terms under which non-contract writers came to provide content for the Huffington Post until now? To what extent did they do it for free only given an understanding of the publication's philosophy that changes once it can be sold for $310 million? In the case of non-contract providers, can you really say what the terms were? What about authors who claim otherwise? They'll end up in a thicket of claims.

- How much of the sale value came about thanks to the popularity of the free content? What are the benefits of publication of free content to the author and to the publication?

- Who really owns all that content?

- What is the difference between a blog post and an article? It may be obvious at the extremes of the two forms, but the dividing line is not clear.

Some here think the answers are obvious, but the court may not. Huffington has probably already accounted for a settlement, or is realizing right now that one will be necessary. That's my guess.

Or else they're going to risk having the definitions of the above terms dictated by the court in a precedent-setting case. (The unknown consequences might dwarf the value of a settlement.) They could always get lucky and have a preemptive ruling on some technicality, no precedent, but Tasini's side obviously do their homework and have met with success in the past.

In addition, the case may end up casting a spotlight on matters unrelated to the case, but potentially embarrassing and damaging to AOL and Huffington. The last thing they need is for the market to take a close look at the business model that is supposed to justify a $310 million purchase price for what is essentially a URL, a questionable brand name, content you can find elsewhere, and the Arianna Image. What other capital does this company possess? Or for too many people to notice that AOL is still taking money from zombie subscribers for services they now provide for free (owing to a lot of old people not having noticed that they're still paying $5 a month for nothing). Or who knows what else.

.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

89. Very humorous.

Arianna is being sued for not paying for voluntarily given tripe she passed off as journalism. Watching buffoons such as these two bite each other in the ass is rapidly becoming my new favorite spectator sport. Who knows, perhaps some self proclaimed "enlightened thinkers" who've been led around by their noses by these poorly researched, overly sensational, profit per click websites, will finally see the content for what it really is, rubbish.

[JackRiddler]

96. Surely the funniest part is $315 million dollars... from AOL, specialists in folly.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

97. "AOL, specialist in folly. I like that!

Not to mention it suits them perfectly. Granted, a couple of years ago they revamped their business model. Of course they were basically forced to since Time Warner had finally ran screaming into the night, severing their ties with AOL after their historical failure of a merger. The change was supposed to convert them from being a high spamming, unsolicited junk-mail sending, failed ISP to an annoying advertising saturated "high quality content" news provider. Considering how AOL has run their business in the past, how could one be surprised to see them over pay for "high quality content" from a site like Huffington Post?

[Trikatnieks]

95. It's even worse than everyone thinks - she's a "slave driver" apparently

It's even worse than everyone thinks...

Bloggers sue Arianna Huffington after 'being treated like slaves'

A group of angry bloggers, being led by freelance journalist and trade unionist Jonathan Tasini, filed the class action in New York federal court, after Huffington sold her internet newspaper in February for $315m without paying contributors a penny.
Tasini, who wrote more than 250 posts for The Huffington Post on an unpaid basis leading up to the site’s sale, said: “Huffington bloggers have essentially been turned into modern day slaves on Arianna Huffingtons’s plantation”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/8448234/Bloggers-sue-Arianna-Huffington-after-being-treated-like-slaves.html

[WatsonT]

103. They don't have a case

but it is kind of a dick move to treat her "workers" like this. She made money off their labor. So they aren't entitled to any sort of compensation but it would be nice of her to throw them something.

[JackRiddler]

104. Insofar as there were no contracts, they may well have a case.

In the absence of contract, the question of whether submissions were solicited and on what terms (including what the understanding was of the publication's role in the world) may not have the simple prima-facie answer that most people on this thread are assuming. (Please refer to Post 87.) Same goes for the question of what value may have been added to the eventual sale price thanks to the use of thousands of unpaid submissions.

I do predict one outcome regardless of how the case goes will be that Huffington devises some kind of at least nominal revenue-sharing plan for authors. So the case isn't pointless, even if it loses.