Huffington Post blogger sues AOL for $105 million
By Julianne Pepitone, staff reporter
April 12, 2011: 2:58 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- A longtime Huffington Post blogger has filed a lawsuit against the site, its two co-founders and new owner AOL, seeking $105 million on behalf of himself and 9,000 other unpaid bloggers.
The suit is being led by Jonathan Tasini, a journalist and union organizer, who filed the complaint Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Tasini is seeking class-action status for the case.
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Huffington Post blogger sues AOL for $105 million
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Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Huffington Post blogger sues AOL for $105 million
Axe to grind here, so off topic but forgive me. An unpaid blogger filed suit against AOL for work done posting on Huffington Post. While I really understand how he feels and part of me really hopes he wins, like most bloggers, he knew what he was getting into. Bloggers always know. Sure we hope that our work will lead to a job or a book deal. We hope that one day we can break into the "real world" of journalists or even find some kind of respect, but seriously, hopes aside, most do it to post on things that matter to them. For me it happens to be veterans and the troops. I am an unpaid staff writer for Veterans Today and I post there when I can grateful that I can post whatever I want to say. They get more hits than this blog does, so the extra exposure matters to me. Would I sue if they ended up making money later? Hell no. I'd be jealous but I wouldn't sue simply because being willing to work for free means exactly that. He wrote what he wrote for free so to turn around and want a pay day now seems wrong. 9,000 unpaid bloggers? Really smart business plan.
Yes, I think under that circumstance the bloggers should definitely be paid for their work. As a writer I can identify with writing for free for publications that aren’t making any money yet in order to gain experience and exposure. But once a large compnay like AOL aquires the publication it’s like come on…you can pay them now. I think it is unfair that the owner reaps all of the benefits of the bloggers work. It’s selfish.
ReplyDeleteSelfish, yes, it is. But it is like building up any company someone else owns. You don't get a share when the company is sold. In the case of Huffington Post, with 9,000 unpaid writers, that is troubling. I wonder how long people stayed writing for them for free and how many they ended up hiring.
ReplyDeleteBreaking into any multimedia site is very hard and working for free is a way in, but that does not always mean the person has talent to do it. Self-publishing is usually done by people with talent but no connections. still most have only dreams of becoming an author.
Tasini wrote for free and he knew what he was doing. He must have hoped on getting a paying job doing it. Do we know if he was good or not? Do we know how much work he did for Huffington?
My knee jerk reaction was "hippie the little guy isn't taking it anymore" but then as I thought about it, the more I changed my mind.