Reply #31: The case takes place in a court, not in your imagination. Tasini knows what he's doing.

[JackRiddler]

Tasini already reached a big settlement in an earlier class action on behalf of creators against the New York Times.

Furthermore... let's adapt your script to what will really be argued.

"Ms. Huffington, let me see if I understand correctly. You ran a site with volunteer writers for 10 years. They created your site for you. No contracts were ever signed. No writers were paid. Your claim was that publication alone was worth it, given the political value of the site, the writers should be glad to participate. And then, one fine day, you were able to sell the site for $310 million dollars. But none of the writers ever received any portion of that, although their work created the site."

Ms. Huffington: "Uh... yeah."

(Probably she'd do better than that, but since I'm mirroring your silly script, why not?)


Now what would follow is not the poorly-scripted movie you seem to like playing in your head (but unfortunately also choose to share with us, genre: "pornography of power"). So there wouldn't be a gavel falling and it would take another 30 or 300 court-hours before the ruling went to the plaintiffs. More likely, of course, is that a settlement would be reached.

Sorry if that's not Hollywood and pat enough for you. I know certain breeds of important professional writers depend on giving their audience simplicity, even when contrary to fact.