Slashdot Mirror
A Proposal For Unionizing Bloggers
mikesd81 writes "Coloumbia Journal Review writes about the possibility of unionizing bloggers. Chris Mooney writes 'Yes, dear reader: the Bloggers Guild of America may be on its way. The dispute between screen and television writers and media conglomerates has its roots, after all, in the Web.' He says, then, they get zero compensation for their products being distributed over the Internet. 'Bloggers often earn that same salary. There are exceptions, of course, those fortunate few who have become quasi-celebrities in their own right and found themselves, and their sites, snatched up by major media companies,' he goes on to say. He also adds that a bloggers guild could protect a blogger's intellectual property and help ensure they're compensated for it."
Its the best idea ever.
That way we can abuse their rights and they can go on strike!!!
liqbase
It shouldn't come as a shock that people who simply post their opinions publicly so that someone will listen to them would only be paid what those opinions are worth.
they get zero compensation for their products being distributed over the Internet
The vast majority of them earn every penny of that.
What. The. Fuck.
Honestly, you make up a word for "people writing regularly writing online and letting others comment on it" and all of a sudden you think you're something special.
Am I missing something?
Blogging is a voluntary activity generally conducted solely by the individual doing the blogging. Whether to charge or not is an individual choice.
Also, scientists generally contribute far more intellectual energy to submitting their publications and they aren't paid for it either (although it is considered somewhat of a job expectation). As for protecting their IP, their articles generally cease being their own IP once a journal gets ahold of it, upon which it controls distribution and very often ransoms access to the public, making a profit for the journals - but not the scientists who wrote the paper. I think researchers may need to unionize earlier than bloggers if abuse of IP is what you're concerned about.
Are unions even needed these day? Don't new laws protect workers in the way unions did a hundred years ago? If you don't like your job, find a new job! If you aren't getting paid enough, find a new job! If your employer is discriminating against you, or the workplace is unsafe, then let existing laws take care of it! Unions for the most part suck IMHO.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
...when it's members aren't actually employed. I don't mean bloggers don't have jobs, just that their job isn't generally blogging. A union exists to give workers collective leverage against their employers, who stand to lose economically if a strike is called.
Who loses money if the bloggers go on strike? For that matter, if they weren't blogging, how would we even know they were on strike? By the lack of updates? I doubt the print media would care enough to inform us.
A guild in the sense of a trade organization might make sense, but a union?
You might just as sensibly organize the elephants and have them strike if ivory poaching continues.
It's the hackers thatt need a union, what with all the negative publicity they get when they do naughty stuff.
;)
The Hackers Guild could then provide *protection* to the Bloggers Guild - for a small fee, of course...
"He Who Dares Wins"
They're taking the piss surely?
OMG! The bloggers are on strike, oh noes!! Where will I get my random crap and aerated opinions from?!!!
It's almost as ridiculous as the 'Students Unions' we have in Universities here...
Then forget independence.
Unions had/have their place, but this isn't one of those places.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
apterous.org
Most unions work because membership is mandatory for workers in a field covered by the union. Would this be the case for a bloggers union? If so, does the Internet suddenly become a read-only medium except for those who've paid their dues, and been approved for membership in the guild?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
I'd rather take my chances with NBC than add the extra complication of the union screwing me over. The worst problem with unions is that if they had their way, I wouldn't even get that choice.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
... they could just stop blogging if they are not getting paid for it and really want to be. Nobody would miss them, especially not those bloggers already making money. This self-important blabbering is great blog-content, but entirely uninteresting -- much like most blogs. What did your dog do today ?
Where, exactly would a group of bloggers create enough value that "we" would be prepared to pay extra to have them continue?
They have no leverage as most of them are hobbyists and do it more for their own benefit and self-image than for anyone else. If they stopped, they would not be missed and there would not be a hole in our lives that needed filling (possibly the reverse!!!)
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
... no one gives a fuck if you go on strike. in fact i would propose that we help them form said union so that we can force them into a permanent strike so that all blogs dry up and my goggle searches can be useful again.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Unions are the cause of a lot problems in the U.S. In Illinois, you are required to join a union if your job function is unionized. They're huge bureaucratic entities that are corrupt, they waste time, and they especially waste money. I've been in a union (UFCW), and it sucked. Unions are always talking about striking while at the same time take a large chunk of money out one's paycheck. These "union dues" or extortion fees would never, ever be seen again. And the biggest problem with unions is that it is very difficult to get rid of a crappy worker.
I'll be damned if I have to be forced to join a union because I write blogs. Unions were needed at the beginning of the 20th century because there were no laws to protect the worker. Today, there are laws in force that do protect the worker. Additional laws for bloggers would not be that tough to do. Plus, there wouldn't be any extortion fees to pay.
"Happily lived Mankind in the peaceful Valley of Ignorance." -- Hendrik Willem Van Loon
Why does this topic remind me of a certain philosopher's strike?
I must admit he does spend a lot of time on his blog these days.
After he won "Best in Show" at the 2006 Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show, his blog was serialized in Breeders Times and he just doesn't get time to go for regular walkies anymore.
"He Who Dares Wins"
Eh, say what? If I get paid, how exactly would union rules stop me from blogging? My server, my content, how exactly are they going to stop me? Not that I'd even consider joining any sort of idiotic bloggers union anyway, but I can't understand your comment.
Okay. The article is poorly written, but the responses here seem to nonetheless be missing the point.
The article, in suggesting that bloggers organize to receive a cut of proceeds, is not talking about your next door neighbor and his diary-blog. The article is referring only to bloggers writing for websites that make considerable ad revenue.
I'm not all too familiar with the scene, but, according to the article, much of Daily Kos' and the Huffington Post's content is supplied by smalltime bloggers who write on those sites. The article is saying that those writers should be making a cut of the ad revenue. It then mentions a couple sites where that's already the case. And it ignores that the high-profile (read: already famous for some other reason) bloggers at the Huffington Post are certainly getting paid handsomely already.
Bad News: This won't be the worst idea this year. Probably not this week. And every week after that will top the week before.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Well, some bloggers like to think of themselves as free radicals!
Incidentally:
http://membership.acs.org/W/WNY/db2005/db0305.html
'Since I know the chemical profession best, I devised two questions, for instance, to tell a chemist from a nonchemist. Here they are:
(1) How do you pronounce UNIONIZED?
(2) What is a mole?
In response to the first question, the nonchemist is bound to say "YOO-yun-ized," which is the logical pronunciation, and the dictionary pronunciation, too. The chemist, however, would never think of such a thing; he would say without a moment's hesitation: "un- EYE -on-ized."
In response to the second question, the nonchemist is bound to say, "A little furry animal that burrows underground," unless he is a civil engineer who will say, "A breakwater." A chemist, on the other hand, will clear his throat, and say, "Well, it's like this -" and keep talking for hours.
There's my cue. Shall we talk about the chemical version of the little furry animal?"
~~"To Tell a Chemist" Isaac Asimov 1965'
Isaac Asimov once suggested that if one needed to determine whether a person claiming to be a scientist on To Tell the Truth was really a scientist or just an impostor, they could write 'unionize' on a piece of paper, hold it up, and ask the person to pronounce the word.
An impostor would probably say 'yoon-yun-ize' while a real scientist would more likely say 'un-ion-ize'.
When I read the headline, I was thinking of ions as well.
Well that's the trick, isn't it? Blogs are the new soap box, and there's no shortage of people preaching to anyone who will listen (although ironically this is usually just to other bloggers). Sure, most of them are elitist pricks whom, much like many politicians, believe that they serve some vital role in our lives and without which modern society would collapse in on itself like a dying star.
Like modern unions, this is a scam so that a few select people can wield power while deceiving everyone under them into thinking that they are necessary.
Unless someone is paying you to blog, blogging isn't a job. Shit, you certainly don't have to come home from your 9-5 job at Starbucks and blog about every fucking aspect of your life. Saying you want to be compensated for what you produce is like me asking the County to pay me for what I flush down the toilet. If you really do want to make a business out of it then charge for your content. I'm sure within a few, short days you'll realize how completely useless and trite the crap you spew out of your pie-hole is and exactly how little anyone really cares: 0.
I completely blame the media outlets for letting bloggers' egos get so ridiculously inflated to think that the trash they produce is somehow useful or important. People don't care what the 'blogosphere' is saying as they aren't a sample of any group but themselves. For fucks sake, if you want to write something meaningful, become a scientist and publish!
Hmmm... Lets get a look at Germany Unions instead, IG-Metal to be particular.
It's the union that covers all metallurgic works, including car-making.
They actually have a war chest that covers salaries while on strike, so it can go-on for a longer time to FORCE the Bosses to give-in before it cost them their own bonuses.
=> Ig-Metal affiliates are among the best paid in their work line in Europe.
Please remember Capitalism is "rule of the strongest", and that as a worker you have to make it work for you, the lowest link in the pyramid.
"When everything else has failed, give it a kick. It will satisfy a deep urge and sometime even make it work" (Me) - works also quite well for the non-physical world.
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
The idea that all people can simply leave their jobs is ridiculous. Workers have mortgages and other commitments and there is often a shortage of suitable employment. Because of this, most employees have a stake in the firm they work for. Unions aren't suitable for every kind of industry, but they can do a lot of good for employees and employers in many circumstances. Collective bargaining is simply that: bargaining. Unions don't always get what they want and neither do employers, but that's what happens when you bargain. Of course the state has to set the employment laws which provide the context for collective bargaining, and that is usually where the problems arise. Poorly written employment laws can either give unions too much power or too little, and problems will arise in both cases. Collective agreements are actually pretty useful, since they give people on both sides a specific time frame to bargain, and then the rest of the time they can shut up and get on with working.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
It's an election year, after all.
God damn. I know that in this era and country there is this cultural phenomenon which consists in discrediting exports/professionals with respect to amateurs, but could we at least remember the difference between an amateur and a professional?
This whole 'blogger=journalist' movement is ridiculous and quite insulting to actual career journalists. I don't know how it's like in the US but here in France you need a license to call yourself a journalist (Disclaimer : my father was a French journalist), so if you want to be called that that's what you've gotta obtain. And don't get me started with the FUD some of you would like to give me about having the government/an organisation to decide who's a journalist, because here any journalist from the most Marxist to the most neo-fascist has their license.
You just got troll'd!
Rather than threatening to go on strike if they don't get paid, the Blogger's Guild could offer to go on strike if they do get paid. That seems far more likely to produce income as far as I can see.
The whole point of a union is to apply pressure in bargaining situations that the individuals, unorganized, could not apply pressure. It's solely a collective-bargaining organization.
MAJIKTHISE: We'll go on strike!
VROOMFONDEL: That's right. You'll have a national philosopher's strike on your hands.
DEEP THOUGHT:Who will that inconvenience?
MAJIKTHISE: Never you mind who it'll inconvenience you box of black legging binary bits! It'll hurt, buster! It'll hurt!
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
So, let's imagine the bloggers form a union, and go on strike.
Somehow, I think I could manage.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."