6 ms·

Yelp reviewers claim to be employees in lawsuit

36 points by alexlitov 13y ago

trimbo 13y ago
So what would Facebook be? Or Google?
mkhalil 13y ago
"...textbook example of a frivolous lawsuit" - Yelp Agreed. But let's just say, they win. Would this force sites like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to go the YouTube route and pay the really popular ones? --well anyone can make money on YouTube, but unless your popular, your not going to make anything significant-- People already do this with sponsored tweets and pics, but it's not Twitter that's actually paying them. I wonder why YouTube decided it's a good idea (obviously it was/is).
- dclowd9901 13y ago
  There's not even a point in going down that hypothetical. This is beyond stupid. It would be like suing your favorite restaurant for not paying you for telling everyone how much you like it.
- Shivetya 13y ago
  Well I would never have imagined that people could have sued AOL for volunteering to manage message boards; community leaders. Yet that was investigated by the Department of Labor and settled in 2010. Does the act of encouraging people to comment on your site, where the services you comment on require investment of your money, somehow incur a debt on part of the review site to the reviewers? What if the review site has a monetary relationship with the sites being reviewed?
- Zimahl 13y ago
  YouTube most likely decided to pay for videos to encourage more and better content. Without paying their content creators, YouTube would just be the place where you get started and then moved somewhere else to profit.
PhasmaFelis 13y ago
Wow. That takes some balls.
- goshx 13y ago
  and no brain.
codezero 13y ago
The only time (as far as I am aware) that a similar lawsuit was successful was when AOL had to pay out $15 million to their moderators. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Community_Leader_Program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Community_Leader_Program Some key reasons they were able to win were: 1) they had training 2) they had supervisors 3) they had to file reports and meet goals If they were operating autonomously, or even given some incentives (at the time they were given free AOL which was not a flat rate, so it had significant value), then the risk is low, but some of the things AOL did in running this program put them at risk. Even with the very specific things AOL did that bit them later, the lawsuit still dragged on for a long time. Yelp is unlikely to be at any risk at all here unless they were treating these reviewers like employees. Just contributing content is definitely not enough to put them at risk, and if the people are bitter about their contributions they have the right to remove them (I think).
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- DanBC 13y ago
  http://www.yelp.com/static?country_=US&p=tos http://www.yelp.com/static?country_=US&p=tos > You alone are responsible for Your Content, and once published, it cannot always be withdrawn. > We may use Your Content in a number of different ways, including publicly displaying it, reformatting it, incorporating it into advertisements and other works, creating derivative works from it, promoting it, distributing it, and allowing others to do the same in connection with their own websites and media platforms ("Other Media"). As such, you hereby irrevocably grant us world-wide, perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, assignable, sublicensable, transferable rights to use Your Content for any purpose. Please note that you also irrevocably grant the users of the Site and any Other Media the right to access Your Content in connection with their use of the Site and any Other Media. Finally, you irrevocably waive, and cause to be waived, against Yelp and its users any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to Your Content. By "use" we mean use, copy, publicly perform and display, reproduce, distribute, modify, translate, remove, analyze, commercialize, and prepare derivative works of Your Content. They follow that with > As between you and Yelp, you own Your Content. We own the Yelp Content, including but not limited to visual interfaces, interactive features, graphics, design, compilation, including, but not limited to, our compilation of User Content and other Site Content, computer code, products, software, aggregate user review ratings, and all other elements and components of the Site excluding Your Content, User Content and Third Party Content. We also own the copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade names, and other intellectual and proprietary rights throughout the world ("IP Rights") associated with the Yelp Content and the Site, which are protected by copyright, trade dress, patent, trademark laws and all other applicable intellectual and proprietary rights and laws. As such, you may not modify, reproduce, distribute, create derivative works or adaptations of, publicly display or in any way exploit any of the Yelp Content in whole or in part except as expressly authorized by us. Except as expressly and unambiguously provided herein, we do not grant you any express or implied rights, and all rights in and to the Site and the Yelp Content are retained by us. Which is, I think, an effort to distance themselves if someone posts "I totally saw the chef drop the steak on a dirty floor and put it on a plate" type lies.
zequel 13y ago
An aside, according to the lawsuit: Writers can receive "Elite" status and are given titles such Duke, Duchess, Baron, or Baroness, the complaint states." Really? Oh man, what people will do for "achievements"! Personally, I think the lawsuit is bogus.
thehme 13y ago
This suit has no merit. If it did, then every FB, Twitter, Google, Amazon, etc. user would have to start getting paid at sign up. It doesn't make sense. The point of rating/reviewing a service/product is that you want to share the ups and downs with other people, so they make an educated selection. I personally enjoy reading reviews of restaurants and always give a place a chance if there are few unfavorable reviews. I also like writing my own reviews and even though I might have once thought that I should be paid (like a good wine connoisseur) I know that that I would've never reviews anything from the start, if getting paid was the goal. This blog post reminded my of that one commercial (has anyone see it?), which I find very annoying, about joining someone's list. Perhaps these Yelp users should pay to review as they don't quite deserve the Yelper title.
bhahn 13y ago
I wish the US legal system would make changes to discourage these types of frivolous lawsuits. It seems like many suits are intended to force the defendant to settle even though the suit itself has no merit. I wonder if the # of frivolous lawsuits would go decline if the suing party were forced to pay the defendant's legal fees if the suing party lost.
- 300bps 13y ago
  I wish the US legal system would make changes to discourage these types of frivolous lawsuits Me too. But it probably won't for three reasons: 1. The civil litigation business is immensely profitable for attorneys 2. The number of people / organizations sued is small enough that they don't have a loud enough voice 3. Anytime someone advocates for reform (ex: loser pays) they will trot out the one case that so clearly calls out for justice and state how the reform would keep justice from occurring in this case
- saraid216 13y ago
  It entertains me that we're so big on First Amendment rights, but the right to petition for redress of wrongs needs to have conditions on it like "not frivolous".
walshemj 13y ago
They probably Googled for lawyer and picked the one with the most 5* reviews that he had paid for. Or they met some drunk guy in a bar who said he was a lawyer is the other option. Bet the Judge will go into his chambers after this one and have a very good laugh.
zonkey 13y ago
The flip of this would be Yelp retroactively charging users for looking at reviews. It's ridiculous.
goshx 13y ago
OMG, I think we should all get paid for posting content to HN!
kin 13y ago
This is silly. The notion basically applies to every crowd-sourced service out there.
hippich 13y ago
i will risk my karma here and say that if all sites were required to pay for user's contribution, that would force sites to charge visitors for using sites, and this might in turn would stop this crazy ads mania and convert sites to subscription-only.
brnstz 13y ago
You might say this is frivolous lawsuit, and I'd agree. The plaintiffs have zero chance of winning, there is no coercion, there is no semblance of employment. But. Take a moment to think. What is the value of a website like this, without the user-generated content? A Yelp with no reviews, no photos, etc. is just a phonebook. Alternatively, a restaurant review with no platform, no audience is just a journal entry. It's symbiotic. Maybe that's obvious. Ok, so. Yelp gets paid. Why don't the reviewers get paid? Too easy to game? Too impractical? Because people will do it for free anyway? Musicians and exhibitionists will do it for free, too. That doesn't mean they are creating no value. It would be good if Yelp reviewers could be paid. It would be good if it were possible to pay people for the value they create voluntarily.
- scarecrowbob 13y ago
  Here's a larger point from the mid twentieth century: what is the real value of a broadcast TV network with the viewers? IN a sense, the product the network produces is ad views, with the work being done by the audience. I'm not saying that the audience is an employee, just that the model of not paying for value created by a crowd is large and old.
  - brnstz 13y ago
    Imagine a (very fictional) Yelp user who has 0 money, will never go to a restaurant again in his life, or buy anything at all for that matter. But he has perfect memory and can write excellent reviews of thousands of restaurants he's been to in the past. Does he have any value to Yelp as eyeball for advertisers? No. If Yelp's audience consisted completely of people like him, no one would ever advertise on Yelp again, no restaurant owner would ever pay Yelp for premium whatever status thing they sell. But our fictional user can write reviews that are consumed by other users. He is providing real value to Yelp, as a non-eyeball. In the television case, this guy is completely worthless. Facebook is a simpler example, because most people are both supplying content and seeing ads. If there were no content, no one would go there to see the ads.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
daveambrose 13y ago
unrelated but when did Circa start publishing to the web, in addition to their apps?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
andrew_gardener 13y ago
so if this lawsuit were to win, would this be the beginning of the end for user generated content sites? Not that I think they'll win. Its a bit of a stretch to call these reviewers employees unless there is something missing from the article (I've never heard of Yelp before so I don't know much about them).
benhirashima 13y ago
unbelievable. some people.
alexrson 13y ago
"...textbook example of a frivolous lawsuit" - Yelp I have to agree.
jmduke 13y ago
The precedent of such a suit would be staggering; I can't count on two hands the number of major Internet companies that derive the vast-majority of their content from user-generated content. Kinda weird to be fiercely on the side of a company I dislike, but I hope Yelp doesn't have to spend too much money on pointless legal fees here.
- lifeformed 13y ago
  And to think I've been making all those Reddit memes for free!
- segmondy 13y ago
  You write as if the suit has a chance. The suit has no chance, none, zilch, zero. They were not forced to write the reviews. Imagine me and you suing ycombinator, because our post on HN adds value to the site. How absurd.
  - jmduke 13y ago
    I certainly hope you are correct (and would believe you to be), I just have zero domain knowledge of the law in this scenario and wanted to resist making such an assertion.
    - contextual 13y ago
      I almost fell out of my chair when I read this. What a breath of fresh air! Zero domain knowledge doesn't prevent most HN users from just making something up on the spot and spewing it as fact.
  - moomin 13y ago
    I reckon pg needs to pay me for the value I've added to this site. Not quite sure if I should charge a nickel or a dime.
    - waterlesscloud 13y ago
      It's obvious to me that compensation should come in the form of ownership in yc companies, pro-rated based on total karma. I think tptacek and patio11 will back me up on this.

36 points by alexlitov 13y ago

So what would Facebook be? Or Google?

"...textbook example of a frivolous lawsuit" - Yelp Agreed. But let's just say, they win. Would this force sites like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to go the YouTube route and pay the really popular ones? --well anyone can make money on YouTube, but unless your popular, your not going to make anything significant-- People already do this with sponsored tweets and pics, but it's not Twitter that's actually paying them. I wonder why YouTube decided it's a good idea (obviously it was/is).

dclowd9901 13y ago
There's not even a point in going down that hypothetical. This is beyond stupid. It would be like suing your favorite restaurant for not paying you for telling everyone how much you like it.
Shivetya 13y ago
Well I would never have imagined that people could have sued AOL for volunteering to manage message boards; community leaders. Yet that was investigated by the Department of Labor and settled in 2010. Does the act of encouraging people to comment on your site, where the services you comment on require investment of your money, somehow incur a debt on part of the review site to the reviewers? What if the review site has a monetary relationship with the sites being reviewed?
Zimahl 13y ago
YouTube most likely decided to pay for videos to encourage more and better content. Without paying their content creators, YouTube would just be the place where you get started and then moved somewhere else to profit.

PhasmaFelis 13y ago

Wow. That takes some balls.

goshx 13y ago
and no brain.

codezero 13y ago

The only time (as far as I am aware) that a similar lawsuit was successful was when AOL had to pay out $15 million to their moderators. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Community_Leader_Program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Community_Leader_Program Some key reasons they were able to win were: 1) they had training 2) they had supervisors 3) they had to file reports and meet goals If they were operating autonomously, or even given some incentives (at the time they were given free AOL which was not a flat rate, so it had significant value), then the risk is low, but some of the things AOL did in running this program put them at risk. Even with the very specific things AOL did that bit them later, the lawsuit still dragged on for a long time. Yelp is unlikely to be at any risk at all here unless they were treating these reviewers like employees. Just contributing content is definitely not enough to put them at risk, and if the people are bitter about their contributions they have the right to remove them (I think).

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
DanBC 13y ago
http://www.yelp.com/static?country_=US&p=tos http://www.yelp.com/static?country_=US&p=tos > You alone are responsible for Your Content, and once published, it cannot always be withdrawn. > We may use Your Content in a number of different ways, including publicly displaying it, reformatting it, incorporating it into advertisements and other works, creating derivative works from it, promoting it, distributing it, and allowing others to do the same in connection with their own websites and media platforms ("Other Media"). As such, you hereby irrevocably grant us world-wide, perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, assignable, sublicensable, transferable rights to use Your Content for any purpose. Please note that you also irrevocably grant the users of the Site and any Other Media the right to access Your Content in connection with their use of the Site and any Other Media. Finally, you irrevocably waive, and cause to be waived, against Yelp and its users any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to Your Content. By "use" we mean use, copy, publicly perform and display, reproduce, distribute, modify, translate, remove, analyze, commercialize, and prepare derivative works of Your Content. They follow that with > As between you and Yelp, you own Your Content. We own the Yelp Content, including but not limited to visual interfaces, interactive features, graphics, design, compilation, including, but not limited to, our compilation of User Content and other Site Content, computer code, products, software, aggregate user review ratings, and all other elements and components of the Site excluding Your Content, User Content and Third Party Content. We also own the copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade names, and other intellectual and proprietary rights throughout the world ("IP Rights") associated with the Yelp Content and the Site, which are protected by copyright, trade dress, patent, trademark laws and all other applicable intellectual and proprietary rights and laws. As such, you may not modify, reproduce, distribute, create derivative works or adaptations of, publicly display or in any way exploit any of the Yelp Content in whole or in part except as expressly authorized by us. Except as expressly and unambiguously provided herein, we do not grant you any express or implied rights, and all rights in and to the Site and the Yelp Content are retained by us. Which is, I think, an effort to distance themselves if someone posts "I totally saw the chef drop the steak on a dirty floor and put it on a plate" type lies.

zequel 13y ago

An aside, according to the lawsuit: Writers can receive "Elite" status and are given titles such Duke, Duchess, Baron, or Baroness, the complaint states." Really? Oh man, what people will do for "achievements"! Personally, I think the lawsuit is bogus.

thehme 13y ago

This suit has no merit. If it did, then every FB, Twitter, Google, Amazon, etc. user would have to start getting paid at sign up. It doesn't make sense. The point of rating/reviewing a service/product is that you want to share the ups and downs with other people, so they make an educated selection. I personally enjoy reading reviews of restaurants and always give a place a chance if there are few unfavorable reviews. I also like writing my own reviews and even though I might have once thought that I should be paid (like a good wine connoisseur) I know that that I would've never reviews anything from the start, if getting paid was the goal. This blog post reminded my of that one commercial (has anyone see it?), which I find very annoying, about joining someone's list. Perhaps these Yelp users should pay to review as they don't quite deserve the Yelper title.

bhahn 13y ago

I wish the US legal system would make changes to discourage these types of frivolous lawsuits. It seems like many suits are intended to force the defendant to settle even though the suit itself has no merit. I wonder if the # of frivolous lawsuits would go decline if the suing party were forced to pay the defendant's legal fees if the suing party lost.

300bps 13y ago
I wish the US legal system would make changes to discourage these types of frivolous lawsuits Me too. But it probably won't for three reasons: 1. The civil litigation business is immensely profitable for attorneys 2. The number of people / organizations sued is small enough that they don't have a loud enough voice 3. Anytime someone advocates for reform (ex: loser pays) they will trot out the one case that so clearly calls out for justice and state how the reform would keep justice from occurring in this case
saraid216 13y ago
It entertains me that we're so big on First Amendment rights, but the right to petition for redress of wrongs needs to have conditions on it like "not frivolous".

walshemj 13y ago

They probably Googled for lawyer and picked the one with the most 5* reviews that he had paid for. Or they met some drunk guy in a bar who said he was a lawyer is the other option. Bet the Judge will go into his chambers after this one and have a very good laugh.

zonkey 13y ago

The flip of this would be Yelp retroactively charging users for looking at reviews. It's ridiculous.

goshx 13y ago

OMG, I think we should all get paid for posting content to HN!

kin 13y ago

This is silly. The notion basically applies to every crowd-sourced service out there.

hippich 13y ago

i will risk my karma here and say that if all sites were required to pay for user's contribution, that would force sites to charge visitors for using sites, and this might in turn would stop this crazy ads mania and convert sites to subscription-only.

brnstz 13y ago

You might say this is frivolous lawsuit, and I'd agree. The plaintiffs have zero chance of winning, there is no coercion, there is no semblance of employment. But. Take a moment to think. What is the value of a website like this, without the user-generated content? A Yelp with no reviews, no photos, etc. is just a phonebook. Alternatively, a restaurant review with no platform, no audience is just a journal entry. It's symbiotic. Maybe that's obvious. Ok, so. Yelp gets paid. Why don't the reviewers get paid? Too easy to game? Too impractical? Because people will do it for free anyway? Musicians and exhibitionists will do it for free, too. That doesn't mean they are creating no value. It would be good if Yelp reviewers could be paid. It would be good if it were possible to pay people for the value they create voluntarily.

scarecrowbob 13y ago
Here's a larger point from the mid twentieth century: what is the real value of a broadcast TV network with the viewers? IN a sense, the product the network produces is ad views, with the work being done by the audience. I'm not saying that the audience is an employee, just that the model of not paying for value created by a crowd is large and old.
- brnstz 13y ago
  Imagine a (very fictional) Yelp user who has 0 money, will never go to a restaurant again in his life, or buy anything at all for that matter. But he has perfect memory and can write excellent reviews of thousands of restaurants he's been to in the past. Does he have any value to Yelp as eyeball for advertisers? No. If Yelp's audience consisted completely of people like him, no one would ever advertise on Yelp again, no restaurant owner would ever pay Yelp for premium whatever status thing they sell. But our fictional user can write reviews that are consumed by other users. He is providing real value to Yelp, as a non-eyeball. In the television case, this guy is completely worthless. Facebook is a simpler example, because most people are both supplying content and seeing ads. If there were no content, no one would go there to see the ads.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

daveambrose 13y ago

unrelated but when did Circa start publishing to the web, in addition to their apps?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

andrew_gardener 13y ago

so if this lawsuit were to win, would this be the beginning of the end for user generated content sites? Not that I think they'll win. Its a bit of a stretch to call these reviewers employees unless there is something missing from the article (I've never heard of Yelp before so I don't know much about them).

benhirashima 13y ago

unbelievable. some people.

alexrson 13y ago

"...textbook example of a frivolous lawsuit" - Yelp I have to agree.

jmduke 13y ago

The precedent of such a suit would be staggering; I can't count on two hands the number of major Internet companies that derive the vast-majority of their content from user-generated content. Kinda weird to be fiercely on the side of a company I dislike, but I hope Yelp doesn't have to spend too much money on pointless legal fees here.

lifeformed 13y ago
And to think I've been making all those Reddit memes for free!
segmondy 13y ago
You write as if the suit has a chance. The suit has no chance, none, zilch, zero. They were not forced to write the reviews. Imagine me and you suing ycombinator, because our post on HN adds value to the site. How absurd.
- jmduke 13y ago
  I certainly hope you are correct (and would believe you to be), I just have zero domain knowledge of the law in this scenario and wanted to resist making such an assertion.
  - contextual 13y ago
    I almost fell out of my chair when I read this. What a breath of fresh air! Zero domain knowledge doesn't prevent most HN users from just making something up on the spot and spewing it as fact.
- moomin 13y ago
  I reckon pg needs to pay me for the value I've added to this site. Not quite sure if I should charge a nickel or a dime.
  - waterlesscloud 13y ago
    It's obvious to me that compensation should come in the form of ownership in yc companies, pro-rated based on total karma. I think tptacek and patio11 will back me up on this.