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On Tuesday, April 12, Jonathan Tasini filed suit against the Huffington Post and AOL, alleging that they didn’t share in the profits they made on the content that he and other freelance writers gave to the news company. Tasini said that the lawsuit was brought on by AOL’s recent purchase of the Huffington Post for $315 million.
Tasini is seeking class-action status to represent the more than 9,000 writers and contributors on the popular news site, and is asking for a minimum of $105 million in damages.
Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer were named as the defendants in the suit.
According to the lawsuit’s claims, the Huffington Post sets an “artificially low price” on content provided by its unpaid contributors since it doesn’t share the profits received from this content, which is “depressing the market for such content.”
In response to the lawsuit, which AOL says does not have any merit, AOL spokesman Mario Ruiz said the following in a statement, “As we’ve said before, our bloggers use our platform – as well as other unpaid group blogs across the web – to connect and help their work be seen by as many people as possible. It’s the same reason hundreds of people go on TV shows to promote their views and ideas. HuffPost bloggers can cross-post their work on other sites, including their own.”
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