Comment by exelius | Hacker News Reader

Comment by exelius | Hacker News Reader

I agree with the writer's points that HuffPo seems like a pretty bad deal for the writer; but honestly how different is that from HN? Ignoring the fact that HN makes no money; the product they offer is obviously desirable or people would stop visiting. Therefore, it is worth something.

A large portion of the top content on HN comes from peoples' personal blogs. While these blogs often run ads, I seriously doubt those ads provide much income beyond covering the hosting bills. So people are obviously willing to write for free.

HuffPo realized there was a market opportunity in connecting people who were writing for free anyway with an audience for their content. I guess my biggest problem with their business model is that the offer seems like a freelance writing gig and could obviously dupe someone who doesn't ask the right questions.

So in the end I don't really have a problem with their business model, but their approach to sourcing content seems a bit disingenuous. If they were more up-front about the lack of payment, I would have less of a problem with this.

The difference is that no one from HN is asking you to write something. It's not the same "I wrote this thing because I wanted to and I'm letting HN/HuffPo link/mirror on their site" and "You asked me to write something for you, so you can win more money, and I'm doing it for free". One is an article for you, the other one is work for another person.

What are Huffington Post's intellectual property terms? That could be a big distinction between Huffington Post and HN.

On HN, nobody signs over any IP, nor does the copyright holder necessarily grant a license of any sort. (If you doubt that, consider the fact that I can submit anyone's URL to HN. So submitters aren't assumed to have any authority over the IP.)

With periodicals, though, there usually is a contract with writers where rights are assigned to the publisher. Maybe the copyright, maybe just a license. There's usually something along those lines.

So the difference between HN and such periodicals (which may or may not include HuffPo) is the difference between merely sharing a link and signing over IP rights.

With HuffPo, you retain ownership of your work and are free to publish it anywhere else.

Good to know. In that case, probably the biggest distinction between HuffPo and HN is that HuffPo displays the content on their own site. For some writers, that might be a plus. For others, it might be a minus.

I've heard some professional writers say you should rarely or ever publish anything (e.g. a blog post) without remuneration. Not because it's wrong to do so, but because they consider it bad business. If they're right, I don't know if that should affect our judgment of a publisher who actively solicits unpaid submissions. Maybe the writers are undervaluing themselves, but then maybe the publisher isn't to blame for that.

"With periodicals, though, there usually is a contract with writers where rights are assigned to the publisher. Maybe the copyright, maybe just a license. There's usually something along those lines."

Publications usually allow the writer to retain IP ownership, but with an exclusive license granted to the publication for a certain period of time. For instance, "Joe Writer agrees to license to PublicationMagazine the exclusive worldwide rights to the work for a period of N days." Depending on the contract, many publications will also want the right to sublicense or syndicate the work during their license period, but will compensate the writer X% of syndication revenues.

I've never written for HuffPo, and I have no idea how their process works. I do, however, think it's a raw deal for any writer to contribute for free on an ongoing basis to a successful, for-profit publication. Not that there's anything illegal or immoral about that, per se. It's just that the writer is selling his time and product very short. Plenty of successful, respectable publications will pay a writer for his work. It won't be much; journalism isn't exactly renowned as a path to material riches. But at least it'll be something.

> Ignoring the fact that HN makes no money

You cant,HuffPo is totally for profit and sold like 100millions to AOL.HuffPo is a giant ad page like most AOL "news" network.

In which case, compare Reddit instead. :P

I'm not exactly sure how HuffPo works, but my understanding was that they host, display, and provide the content as their own. Which is completely different from HN, which simply LINKS to the content itself. So the author/whoever is free to generate their own ad revenue or whatever else they'd like from their content. And HN does none of that.

How is that even remotely the same?

Plus:

> Ignoring the fact that HN makes no money;

Isn't that kind of a huge point?

> Isn't that kind of a huge point?

Yes; but the point is that HN has value. They just choose not to monetize it through ads. It's not noble or anything; it just means that YC feels HN is more valuable as a platform for getting out info about their companies without ads.

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