In 1991 a lawsuit filed by a freelance journalist was decided by the
owed money to independent writers it had published for reselling their
work from its archives. This was a big deal — in theory, anyway.
In fact, all it did was force publishers to get
their lawyers to write bulletproof waivers for freelancers to sign.
That waiver is a thing of wonder. In it, the writer relinquishes all
rights, in perpetuity, to revenue beyond what was paid for initial
publication, no matter the medium (including media not yet imagined),
no matter where (on Earth, at sea or in outer space — literally).
Writers routinely sign these waivers. They generally
have no choice. Hence, the somber lesson of that landmark case: There
is no right that a court can uphold that raw economic power cannot
repeal.
The lead plaintiff in the ’91 case was
HuffPost is a hugely popular site, albeit disheveled and slightly
cheesy, and most of its content is either purloined (sorry, I mean
“aggregated”) from real news outfits or written by unpaid contributors.
Tasini’s beef has to do with those contributors. He
says HuffPost owes its success to the creative work of the unpaid and
the unsung, an estimated 9,000 writers in all, and now that Arianna is
putting an estimated
HuffPost replies that it does have a sizable editorial staff that is paid (not that they’ll see any of the
cash), and as for the others: “The vast majority of our bloggers are
thrilled to contribute. And we’re thrilled to have them. They flock to
us — as well as to other unpaid group blogs across the web — to
broadcast their views, not unlike writing an op-ed in a local paper.”
Tasini has drawn some support.
journalist and Internet theorist, said Huffington should “cut a bunch
of checks to a bunch of the most productive contributors on whose work
she’s built a significant part of her new fortune.”
But much of the commentary sides with HuffPost. Slate’s
after legal motion every time a pot of money is spotted.” Others
dispute the legal basis of the suit and deny that contributors are
employees.
said the suit “makes no sense,” and wonders why if the problem was
years of unpaid labor, Tasini waited to sue until the sale.
Indeed, the suit is a long shot and might, if
successful, establish some elastic notions of employment that could
entangle the very online collaboration that makes the Internet so
nimble and vibrant. But that only means some injustices courts can’t
fix. There remains something deeply unfair in
True, some of the unpaid bloggers were compensated
in other ways, as HuffPost notes, and used their postings to create
micro-brands out of themselves, strut their stuff or audition for
paying work elsewhere. But come on, the top recipient of that noncash
compensation was Huffington herself, who rose from being an amusing
talk-show presence to a media mini-mogul — she now becomes
editorial chief — on the backs of her HuffPost contributors. That’s why
her career soared, and nobody’s suggesting she should leave her money
on the table out of gratitude.
The fact is, working for free is nobody’s first
choice. HuffPost took advantage of the desperation of some and the
vanity of others, and has now turned a collective success into an
individual fortune.
Yep, that’s how the system works. Sadly, there was a
time, not long ago, when some technologists and visionaries imagined
that the new culture of the Internet might be different — based on free
exchange of knowledge, a commitment to social betterment, principles of
equitable sharing, and similar values superior to the greed and pillage
of the old economy.
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(c) 2011, The Miami Herald.
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