AOL Exposed: A Former AOL Employee Speaks Out

Post by JeremyBanks » Sat, Jun 18, 2011, 5:36 AM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #73

corin_ wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Hacker News doesn't make any revenue and acts as a community project of a company, not a profit-aiming brand.

It also produces 0 content, merely comments. It's an aggregator. We've all got used to the aggregators like google making all the money by convincing everyone content should be free. It was the greatest and long-term wise worst achievement of the dot com boom.

Post by Animus7 » Sat, Jun 18, 2011, 6:45 AM UTC

Legion wrote: post #7

kylelibra wrote: post #4

Maybe this is an idealistic thought, but I think this trend of writing SEO laden garbage is what will finally make quality journalism behind paywalls work. People will eventually be driven to pay for decent content, unable to put up with irrelevant half baked articles churned out at breakneck pace.

I pay for publications like The Economist and The Atlantic (both of which I read entirely digitally) for exactly that reason. I want quality content when I sit down to spend my precious reading time on something. I can hardly imagine spending that time reading insipid, content mill junk. Who puts so low of a value on their time?

Post by anigbrowl » Sat, Jun 18, 2011, 7:11 AM UTC

chopsueyar wrote: post #85

tptacek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you sign a professionally drafted contract stating that you are being compensated for writing done on a work-for-hire basis, you are not keeping the copyright to your work regardless of whether the IRS determines that your employer owes penalties and interest for stiffing them on your payroll taxes.

I am saying if you sign a work for hire agreement, and are later determined to be an employee, the company owns the IP because you are an employee of the company, not because you signed a 'work for hire' agreement. Conversely, if the company assumed you didn't need to sign a 'work for hire' agreement because you were an employee, but the IRS determined you were a contractor, you would retain the rights to your works.

Post by maigret » Sat, Jun 18, 2011, 10:00 AM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #73

corin_ wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Hacker News doesn't make any revenue and acts as a community project of a company, not a profit-aiming brand.

It also produces 0 content, merely comments. It's an aggregator. We've all got used to the aggregators like google making all the money by convincing everyone content should be free. It was the greatest and long-term wise worst achievement of the dot com boom.

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 18, 2011, 12:10 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #77

chopsueyar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not the only criteria. See this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2666507 The other issue is, as a contractor, the contractor retains all copyrights to the material created. Work for hire does not apply in this instance. He could send a DMCA takedown notice and have all of his articles removed, or organize all the other unemployed writers and coordinate a massive DMCA takedown letter writing campai…

Virtually all contractors in our field work under "work-for-hire" clauses. I am baffled by the people voting you up and those questioning you down. It is not "in the Constitution" that two parties can't agree to a binding contract that transfers ownership of work product. The IRS tests for contractor vs. employee status break down to: * Does the worker control the "how" as well as the "what" of their task, or do they…