I’ve been asked by a number of people to respond to Arianna Huffington’s post about our lawsuit for justice for bloggers, which was filed on April 12th.
Let me deal with Ms. Huffington’s unhinged and disingenuous response quickly. It reeked mostly of fear. People who exploit others do so out of fear. Fear that they will lose control. Fear that they will lose wealth and power. Fear that anyone would challenge their worldview.
Ms. Huffington’s fear is that bloggers will unite, thus ending her ability to exploit them. She fears that her “brand” will drown in a pool of hypocrisy—a “liberal/progressive” exposed as a fraud, as an exploiter of people no different than the Waltons of Wal-Mart, Goldman Sachs or Rupert Murdoch. At least, the Waltons or Murdochs or other similar corporate leaders are honest—they make no bones about their political views or their willingness to exploit people for profit and fuel an unrelenting class warfare.
There is little doubt that unjust enrichment has taken place. In society, our law tries to reflect our moral values, and vice versa. The thousands of bloggers created the value of the Huffington Post. Arianna Huffington created a tiny piece of that value—but she has declared that she, and only she, should benefit from the value of the sale to AOL.
I have no idea whether we will win the legal case. Judges do what they will do. It is a novel argument—as was the legal argument at the heart of the case I brought against The New York Times in 1993, which we won in the U.S. Supreme Court in 2001 (and, full disclosure, yes, Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist also voted in our favor in the 7-2 decision—a fact I will have to live with). At the time, many pundits or “observers” opined that we had no chance. So, I suggest we all take the opinions of various people with a healthy dose of skepticism, or, at least, a “wait and see” attitude.
But, this is the reason I have said to the blogger community—to the dozens of people who have already written and called asking to be part of the effort (including insiders who are sharing more information to strengthen our case)—that the machinations in court are a small piece of what we must do. This is really not about Ms. Huffington; she will be a forgotten “brand” when the next new fad appears.
This is about YOU, the bloggers and creators everywhere.
Do not wait for the court case to play out.
Organize now.
This is an opportunity to change the future. The rhetoric that YOU should work for free, create value for media CEOs and enrich them, and only them, and, then, be satisfied that you just got published, read or seen has very little to do with the digital age.
It’s as old as the quill pen. For decades, creators have been told that they should just be happy that someone—whether it be Rupert Murdoch or Arianna Huffington—gave them a place to be published or heard. And the Murdochs and the Huffingtons are one and the same—they use fear to impoverish YOU.
We do have the power to change our economic conditions. And, as important, a vibrant creators’ movement—a movement that makes it possible for creators to make a fair wage–will benefit society at large because we are the ones that give texture, understanding and illumination to the whole tapestry of life.
Organize. Today.
