Carolyn Elefant takes up the gauntlet of the free-ride blogger, those who author content which others than use for their own benefit.

Conventional, 21st century wisdom says that content wants to be free. That content isn’t worth paying for. That “exposure” in exchange for content is sufficient reward.

Funny thing is that those who try to sell you this line don’t have content. And not only do they want yours free, but they want to profit off of it as well.

Amen, sister.  Of course, now that the Huffington Post is being purchased by AOL for $315 million, its “corps of 9000 uncompensated bloggers” have suddenly realized the error of their ways.

Some, like [Molly] Secours, are simply cutting their ties, while others, like one blogger on the Hey Arianna Facebook Page is trying to determine whether there’s any legal basis for a lawsuit for retroactive compensation in recognition of how the bloggers’ collective efforts contributed to the success of the site.

Too late.  You gave it away for free, and made Arianna and her partner a bundle in the process, but it was your choice.  Nobody forced any writer to give HuffPo their content, and the corps was happy enough to see their name in pixels at the time.  Really, isn’t that enough?


Waiting for Arianna by Ted Rall

For most of us blawger, the money pie consists of zippo, so it doesn’t matter how big a slice we take, or give away to anyone else.  But if somebody is making money off content, then only a fool gives it away for free. 

Ironically, just such an opportunity presented itself to me, via Carolyn no less.  For those of you who have been around the blawgosphere for a while, you will recall that Carolyn (together with her intrepid sidekick, Bob Ambrogi) were the original writers at American Lawyer Media’s Legal Blog Watch.  When  Bruce Carton needed a new partner to carry three days a week, she asked me if I might be interested.  I was, thinking that Bruce and I could have a lot of fun, and it would offer me an outlet to write about law stuff outside my usual niche.

Enter ALM.  Contrary to whatever the internal memo says, they are not a charity.  They’re just cheap.

After hearing from a youthful editor who inquired as to my interest, he offered me the “opportunity” to be a guest blogger at LBW, to see how we like working with each others.  “What’s the deal,” I inquired.  This was too obtuse a question, generating a repeat of the offer to “guest blog.”

Guest blog?  For, like, free?  And if we “liked” each other, then you were going to pay me what exactly?  Without going into the details, and with some outside interpreting since my efforts to use English to get answers weren’t going well at all, I finally learned that the offer on the table was net/net less than what was paid to the original ALM bloggers, as the demands were greater.

When questioned, the corporate answer came back that what wasn’t included in the compensation package was the intangible of my “exposure” to the vast network of readers that ALM has to offer.  I suggested they could respectfully take their vast network and shove it.  Like I said, ALM is no charity.  Just cheap. 

Sadly, I expected they would have little difficulty finding some hungry lawyer willing to work for whatever they were giving.  I was wrong. They found a law student.  Don’t all lawyers want to read the legal insights of law students?  As it happens, she does a pretty good job, better than ALM deserves.

If it’s exposure you want, then do it for yourself.  Start a blog and write your butt off.  If readers want to read, then you will get readers.  If others think it’s worthy, then you’ll get links and eyeballs and all the other attention that comes from blogging. 

And if you’re not as good as you think you are, then that reality will be exposed a whole lot faster, and a whole lot farther.  And chances are really good that your generosity will go unappreciated when they dump you faster than Lone Star.

On the other hand, if a business is engaged in the effort to make a profit, and wants your valuable time and effort to sell their laundry detergent, then get the slice you deserve.  Don’t give it away for free.  Don’t sell it cheap. 

But what about the intangibles, the recognition?  Think of poor Bob Ambrogi, sitting alone in his New England saltbox telling stories of the glory days to stray cats and hoping for the chance to fly on his own dime to a social media tweetup where some newbie will buy him a beer. 

Carolyn nailed it:

As Jay Foonberg, author of How to Start and Build a Law Practice famously says:

Would you rather do the work and not get paid? Or NOT do the work and NOT get paid.

My 21st century spin on Jay’s old Chestnut is this:

If you get paid, I get paid.

Maybe that’s an old-fashioned sentiment in a free-wheeling, crowdsourcing kind of world. But then again, so is freeloading.

If you’re going to blog for free, then blog for yourself.  Your slice of the pie may be worth nothing, but at least it’s your pie.