Sarah Mirando  |  April 14, 2011

Category: Legal News

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Huffington Post Hit with Class Action Lawsuit

 

By Mike Holter

Huffington PostThe Huffington Post has been hit with a $105 million class action lawsuit by a group of freelance writers who claim the massively popular news website owes them money for posting their articles without compensation.

 

The crux of the Huffington Post class action lawsuit is that the site solicits commentary and articles from freelance writers known for their ability to produce high-quality, engaging content in order to drive traffic to the website, but does not pay them to use their work. When Arianna Huffington launched the site in 2005, this practice was used to help her grow the site. Now that the site has grown substantially, however, (AOL recently bought it for $315 million), contributors to the site are wondering why they are still not being compensated.

 

“TheHuffingtonPost.com has been unjustly enriched by engaging in and continuing to engage in the practice of generating enormous profits by luring carefully-vetted contributors, with the prospect of ‘exposure’ (which TheHuffingtonPost.com deceptively fails to verify), to provide valuable content at no cost to TheHuffingtonPost.com, while reaping the entirety of the financial gain derived from such content,” states the class action lawsuit. “When TheHuffingtonPost.com was recently acquired by AOL for $315 million, the value added by the content provided by plaintiff and the classes to TheHuffingtonPost.com’s price was at least $105 million, none of which was shared with plaintiff and the classes.”

 

“If it were not for the labor of Plaintiff and the thousands of unpaid Class members on and for TheHuffingtonPost.com…[the site] would not have been an attractive merger target and would have sold for at least $105 million less than the merger price of $315 million,” says the complaint.

 

The lead plaintiff in the case, Jonathan Tasini, is a well-known freelance journalist who has successfully sued newspapers and magazines for copyright infringement in the past, including The New York Times, a landmark electronic rights case that addressed the scope of copyrights belonging to thousands of freelance authors.

 

Tasini said in an interview that the Huffington Post engaged in breach of contract with its contributors because of an “implied promise” of compensation, and said some people were promised future payments.

 

Tasini said the site’s owners, including Ms. Huffington, engaged in unjust enrichment by building a business on uncompensated labor and by accepting AOL’s buyout offer without letting it trickle down to the people who helped build the site and continue to drive traffic to it. “AOL would not have paid $315 million without the value [unpaid writers] created,” he said. “Arianna Huffington believes she and only she should pocket the money for the value created.”

 

The Huffington Post class action lawsuit is seeking class certification, damages of at least $105 million for deceptive business practices and unjust enrichment, plus costs.

 

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Updated April 14th, 2011

 

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One thought on Huffington Post Hit with Class Action Lawsuit

  1. Robert says:

    add me

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