By Chris CovertRantburg.com
A federal judge in New York state Friday dismissed claims that bloggers who had provided content without compensation should be compensated, according to US wire and blog reports.
Judge U.S. District Judge John Koeltl said in the dismissal order that the plaintiffs entered their agreements with Ariana Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post, "with eyes wide open" and that they are not entitled to any part of the $105 million in damages alleged in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was brought just after Huffington sold her highly successful news aggregation website to AOL last year for a reported $315 million. Allegations in the lawsuit were that Huffington had unjustly enriched herself at the expense of several bloggers who had provided content over the years, a claim Judge Koetl dismissed.
In the dismissal order Judge Koeltl said that in order for a unjust enrichment compensation to be determined under law, an expectation of compensation was to be explicit in the arrangements between Huffington and her bloggers. Instead, the only thing of value Huffington offered was exposure.
The plaintiffs, in the person of Jonathan Tasini, Tara Dublin, Richard Laermer and Billy Altman, among many others also alleged that they were recruited by Huffington to provide content in exchange for exposure, and use social media such as Twitter to promote their articles and increase visits to the Huffington post. The claim the plaintiffs should receive some part of the $315 million purchase price Huffington reportedly received in the sale of the website was dismissed.
It is known that many other bloggers were formerly with print media, who had been placed on the outs by consolidation and by job losses in the print media business, mainly newspaper and other print media, and had been hoping they would return to their former positions through their work with The Huffington Post.
Judge Koeltl also said many of those writers and bloggers were not kept in their positions at The Huffington Post, that the writers who provided content could have taken other offers during the time in question.
The Huffington Post was set up in May 2005 using money provided by several investors. Before she sold her website, Huffington continually returned to her investors for more money to keep her website running. At one point a year before she sold out to AOL, the Huffington Post was losing a reported $1 million a month.
The Huffington Post also used paid writers and editors during it six year run before being sold.
Chris Covert writes news for Rantburg.com
