Slashdot Mirror
Will Legalities Choke Off Online Volunteerism?
friartux writes: "Adrenaline Vault reports on a clash between volunteers and AOL. The story details how volunteers who receive perks may make the company
subject to minimum wage laws. So how might this affect open source projects, where a company offers hardware in exchange for drivers?" It's quite a long article, and the AOL-vs.-volunteers angle is only one aspect of the story, as friartux points out. Perhaps relevant to many Slashdot readers is that scrutiny of payment-in-kind could affect online gaming participants who trade their time and skill for free access to servers and other resources.
(IANAL) From a regulatory perspective, this could get hairy. Let's imagine for a moment that a US-based online gaming company decides to start paying its "volunteers" the minimum wage. What does this mean for the volunteers who are not US citizens or residents?
Next, let's flip the above scenario. What would happen if a non-US-based online gaming company were using a few US volunteers? What sort of red tape would this mean for them?
Finally, how could the gaming company ever really know where their volunteers were based, anyway? It could be possible for a non-US volunteer, for example, to obfuscate his geographical location in such a way as to appear to be working from inside the US.
Sounds like a potential goldmine for the lawyers...
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The problem is essentially one of scale, and context. When is volunteering OK, and when is it exploitative? For example, I'm a salaried employee, so if my company has something that absolutely has to get done *now*, they can compel me to drag my butt in on the weekend or take it home and get it done. They can't do the same to my hourly coworkers, unless they're willing to pay them for their time. Even if it's a really, really cool project and lots of fun to work on, those guys can't come in without being paid for it - no volunteerism allowed?
Why is that? Well, let's say my employer realizes that a bunch of them are willing to come in and volunteer, but a bunch more are only willing to come in if they're paid overtime. All other factors being equal, which group's labor is in the company's best interest? Why, the free ones, of course! Volunteerism is great for the bottom line! In fact, some of what my chunk of the company does could even be done by totally unrelated people, who might like the chance to come in for a weekend and do some work for us, on a purely volunteer basis, of course. More free labor! More profit!
So let's get back to AOL. Those community leader types are doing some very valuable work for the company. Without their labor, AOL wouldn't be such a compelling place for those who are compelled to use AOL. (Don't ask me why people do that; not my tastes, but it's obviously a big deal to the masses.) If all of the community leaders were to disappear, AOL would actually have to hire and PAY people to do that work. Which means, therefore, that the work that volunteer community leaders do has real economic value, and by not compensating them for that work, AOL benefits off their exploitation.
There is, of course, the question of whether one can be exploited without their permission. I can see some circumstances where people might volunteer for what would otherwise be a paid position in hopes of gaining employment. That's definitely something that a ruthless company could exploit. "Not this week, but maybe next week I might find you a paying job. Keep on volunteering!" It happens. Here where I live, it happens with farm laborers pretty often, in fact. It's a way of milking free work and avoiding paying people.
Implications for open source are pretty interesting. As long as contributors are essentially "independent contractors", release their work under a license (GPL's a nice one. :^) ), and aren't solely volunteering their work to one single entity, I think they might be OK. Problems arise if, say, someone writes a nifty utility that they only give to Microsoft (as an example), and Microsoft thanks them for their "volunteerism", incorporates the utility, and gets even filthier rich off it - that's a problem. Essentially, if I write something for my personal business, where I'm my own employer, and then choose to give it away, that's cool.
Make sense? (As much sense as legal stuff can, anyway?) - I haven't followed the AOL case too rigorously, but don't think it's necessarily evil. Face it, there's a few people getting very, very rich off the labors of a bunch of volunteers, and giving them free AOL access doesn't begin to compensate them adequately for the benefit they bring (and the profits S. Case et al. make off their work).
AOL volunteers have already sued AOL, it's even been on here on slashdot.
Frankly the lawsuit is the most frivolous lawsuit imaginable. These people volunteered to monitor chat rooms and the like for AOL and one day suddenly realize that they would rather have gotten pay and sue AOL. From this story it seems that other companies are reviewing their volunteer policy based on the frivolous lawsuit because if someone can volunteer to do work and later sue for back wages, then someone else who receives non-financial payment for services rendered has an even stronger reason to sue for back wages because they are more likely to have been thought of as employees deserving payment by a court than a volunteer.
(-1 Troll)
Certain types of farm setups are exempt. Perhaps the number of sheep subscribing to AOL could get them certified as a farming operation.
Fishing operations are exempt. With all the trolling of AOLers, ditto.
Casual babysitters and people who care for the infirm are also exempt. See what I'm getting at?
From the article:
"While company representatives have not said so outright, it appears the move to eliminate what amounted to a $10 a month gratuity for volunteers is related to a recent New York class action lawsuit, brought by former volunteers at America Online (AOL). The plaintiffs are claiming that AOL's practice of relying on what it calls "community leaders" to produce, maintain and moderate online content was tantamount to employment, and hence is covered by American minimum wage laws."
I helped maintained a few Forums for many years on Compuserve out of the the love of the topic I was working with. When my priotities shifted and I no longer had the time to maintain that forum, I'm sure there were other member waiting to help out. In return for helping with so many forums, they gave me free access and made me a "helper" for a few months.
Consider, for a moment, what www.dmoz.org/ is doing with the open directory project. A small group of people using their life experiance and expertise to help other people find relavant information on the web. Once again, this is done out of kindness for the comunity and not for some kind of return. The ony payment is in the satisfaction of a job well done.
The problem with the volenteers is that they're "hooked" and the thought of them just stoping their on-line activity seems forein to them. "Wha?!? give up AOL? ? That would be like not breathing??", they might say, and there is the problem.
If you feel like you should be getting payed for the volenteer work you're doing, you're doing to much, and you should stop. The thought of holding AOL somehow liable for this very generous and fair bartering agreement is just daffy!
One more note: this is a class action suit brought for the volenteers. I smell a team of lawyers in bad suits looking to score easy money.