How Nick Denton and Gawker Media Got Hired by the White House to Try to “Erase” Me and Many Other Citizens No, I Am Not Hulk
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Complaint for Violations of The
Case 1:13-cv-04347-AJN Document 1 Filed 06/21/13 Page 1 of 12 JUDGE NATHAN i 3 eN 4347 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK -- -- ---- -- - -- ---- - -- -- -- --- - -- - -- - -- -- -- - --- -- - - --- ----- -- -- - --- --- )( AULISTAR MARK, HAN CHEN Civ. ANDREW HUDSON, Individual All Others Similarly Situated, CLASS / COLLECTIVE ACTION COMPLAINT FOR VIOLATIONS OF THE -against- GA WKER MEDIA LLC, and N Defendants. Plaintiffs Aulistar Mark, Hanchen Lu, and Andrew Hudson, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, by their attorneys, Liddle & Robinson, L.L.P., upon personal knowledge as to themselves and upon information and belief as to other matters, hereby fie this Complaint against Defendants Gawker Media LLC ("Gawker") and Nick Denton ("Denton"), and allege as follows: NATURE OF THE ACTION 1. This lawsuit seeks to recover unpaid wages, including but not limited to minimum wages, for Plaintiffs and other similarly situated workers who have been employed by Gawker in the United States. 2. Gawker is an American online media company and weblog network, founded and owned by Nick Denton based in New York City. Gawker has been listed in major news publications as being among the most valuable and financially successful weblogs in America. One article in particular attributes Gawker's high profit margin to its low operating costs, which are in part attributable to the unpaid labor of its workers. Case 1:13-cv-04347-AJN Document 1 Filed 06/21/13 Page 2 of 12 3. This is a collective action complaint under the Federal Labor Standards Act and a class action complaint under the New York State Labor Law and other applicable state labor laws based on Gawker's policies and practices of refusing to pay wages to its workers by designating them as "interns," even though they are performing vital work that inures to the benefit of Gawker's various business enterprises. -
Blog Title Blog URL Blog Owner Blog Category Technorati Rank
Technorati Bloglines BlogPulse Wikio SEOmoz’s Blog Title Blog URL Blog Owner Blog Category Rank Rank Rank Rank Trifecta Blog Score Engadget http://www.engadget.com Time Warner Inc. Technology/Gadgets 4 3 6 2 78 19.23 Boing Boing http://www.boingboing.net Happy Mutants LLC Technology/Marketing 5 6 15 4 89 33.71 TechCrunch http://www.techcrunch.com TechCrunch Inc. Technology/News 2 27 2 1 76 42.11 Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com Gawker Media Technology/Gadgets 6 21 9 7 78 55.13 Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com Google Inc. Technology/Corporate 14 10 3 38 94 69.15 Gizmodo http://www.gizmodo.com/ Gawker Media Technology/News 3 79 4 3 65 136.92 ReadWriteWeb http://www.readwriteweb.com RWW Network Technology/Marketing 9 56 21 5 64 142.19 Mashable http://mashable.com Mashable Inc. Technology/Marketing 10 65 36 6 73 160.27 Daily Kos http://dailykos.com/ Kos Media, LLC Politics 12 59 8 24 63 163.49 NYTimes: The Caucus http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com The New York Times Company Politics 27 >100 31 8 93 179.57 Kotaku http://kotaku.com Gawker Media Technology/Video Games 19 >100 19 28 77 216.88 Smashing Magazine http://www.smashingmagazine.com Smashing Magazine Technology/Web Production 11 >100 40 18 60 283.33 Seth Godin's Blog http://sethgodin.typepad.com Seth Godin Technology/Marketing 15 68 >100 29 75 284 Gawker http://www.gawker.com/ Gawker Media Entertainment News 16 >100 >100 15 81 287.65 Crooks and Liars http://www.crooksandliars.com John Amato Politics 49 >100 33 22 67 305.97 TMZ http://www.tmz.com Time Warner Inc. -
Modified Roomba Det
Robots: Modified Roomba Detects Stress, Runs Away When It Thinks Y... http://i.gizmodo.com/5170892/modified-roomba-detects-stress-runs-awa... IPHONE 3.0 GIZ EXPLAINS PHOTOSHOP APPLE LUNCH NSFW iPhone 3.0 Beta Giz Explains: CONTEST iPhone 3.0 OS The Genius iPhone OS 3.0 OS Walkthrough What Makes The 42 Even More Guide: Behind Will Turn Your Video Five Smartphone Ludicrous Everything You Scanwiches.com's Phone Into a Platforms Control Schemes Need to Know Juicy Sandwich Revolutionary Different Apple Might Just Porn Sex Toy Try Gizmodo ROBOTS Modified Roomba Detects Stress, Runs Away When It Thinks You Might Abuse It By Sean Fallon, 4:40 PM on Mon Mar 16 2009, 7,205 views The last thing you need when you get home is something making noise and hovering underfoot. This modified Roomba avoids users when it detects high levels of stress. Designed by researchers at the University of Calgary, this Roomba interacts with a commercial headband for gamers that detects muscle tension in the face. The more tension it detects, the farther away the Roomba will hover from the subject. The purpose of this rather simple device is to explore the potential of human and machine interaction on an emotional level. The researchers envision gadgets that approach you like a pet when it detects that you are lonely and in need of comfort. Conversely, the Roomba model could be taken a step further—imagine if it cowered under the bed when you came home drunk and angry. Then, fearing for it's life, the Roomba calls 911 and gets you thrown in the slammer for appliance abuse. -
Response Sympathy for the Devil: Gawker, Thiel, And
RESPONSE SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: GAWKER, THIEL, AND NEWSWORTHINESS AMY GAJDA* At a time when some courts had shifted to protect privacy rights more than press rights, the Gawker website published a grainy and apparently surreptitiously recorded sex tape featuring professional wrestler Hulk Hogan. What the jury that awarded Hulk Hogan more than $140 million in his privacy lawsuit did not know is that Peter Thiel, an individual apparently motivated to bring Gawker down, had helped to bankroll the plaintiff’s case. This Response, inspired by The Weaponized Lawsuit Against the Media: Litigation Funding as a New Threat to Journalism, argues that both sides in the Gawker dispute deserve some level of sympathy. First, Gawker for rejecting at times too restrictive ethics considerations when those considerations can lead to non-reporting that protects the powerful. But it also argues that sympathy is due to Thiel whose parallel motivation was to protect individual privacy at a time when some publishers believed they could publish whatever they wished. It ultimately concludes that caps on damages might best balance important and competing interests between press and privacy. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................ 530 I. Gawker and Its Choices .................................................... 532 A. The Teenager v. Gawker ........................................... 538 B. The Acquitted and Gawker ....................................... 540 * The Class of 1937 Professor of Law, Tulane University Law School. I am grateful to the American University Law Review for soliciting this Response from me and for excellent editing assistance. Thanks also to Chris Edmunds and David Meyer for helpful comments. 529 530 AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 67:529 C. Gawker and Hulk Hogan ......................................... -
Personal Foul? Deadspin and an Iconic Athlete CSJ
CSJ- 12- 0042.0 • • Personal Foul? Deadspin and an Iconic Athlete In the early 21st century, the simultaneous surge of celebrities and nonstop demand for content from digital news websites created a new world in sports journalism. Stories that traditional sports reporters and editors often rejected—either for ethical reasons or for lack of interest or evidence—became fodder for sports blogs (many written by fans) and other websites, including those of mainstream newspapers, magazines and television networks. The Internet with its 24/7 news cycle ramped up the race to break news first. Increasingly, gossip and innuendo became accepted as news in its own right. Sports editors had to find ways to compete while trying to maintain editorial standards. Enter Deadspin, a sports blog launched by Gawker Media in 2005. Like many sportswriters dating back to the 1960s, Deadspin shunned the accepted narrative of athletes as heroes. For Deadspin bloggers, however, digging into the off-the-field behavior of athletes was standard fare. Readers loved it. In 2009, the website attracted upwards of 2 million visitors a month. In February 2010, Deadspin Editor A.J. Daulerio learned that celebrated football quarterback Brett Favre, while with the New York Jets, in 2008 had sent cellphone photos of his genitalia to Jenn Sterger, an in-house sideline reporter for the Jets. Favre had been named the National Football League’s Most Valuable Player three times. Throughout his legendary career, Favre had built his image and reputation on being a family man (he was married, with two daughters and a grandchild) and as a sponsor of many charities. -
Owen Thomas: the 'Dirty Laundry' of Digital Media History
“Owen Thomas: The ‘Dirty Laundry’ of Digital Media History” Season 1: Episode 1 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stayin' Alive in Technology. A series of conversations with Silicon Valley veterans touching on war stories from the past and practical advice for today. And now, here's your host, Melinda Byerley, founding partner of Timeshare CMO. Melinda Byerley: Before we get to the interview, I want to tell you a little bit about Owen Thomas and why I invited him to be the first guest on Stayin' Alive in Tech. Owen has been observing technology in Silicon Valley in particular from almost the very beginning of the first boom. Through starting at Suck.com, working through Business Insider, working at Gawker, working at Valleywag, he's been around and he's seen a lot. And he has more stories than we could possibly fit into one half hour podcast. So I hope you'll listen to this and enjoy it, but know that we are already in the process of recording a part two that will focus specifically on his time at Gawker where he wrote the post that incited Peter Thiel to sue Gawker, ultimately closing the business. And he's got a heck of a story to tell. So enjoy this history of Suck.com because it has a lot to do with how media is covering tech and where some of the seeds of where we are today might be. Melinda Byerley: I am over the moon to welcome Owen Thomas to this episode. Owen is the business editor for the San Francisco Chronicle. -
Bankruptcy MVP: Ropes & Gray's Gregg Galardi by Andrew Strickler
Portfolio Media. Inc. | 111 West 19th Street, 5th Floor | New York, NY 10011 | www.law360.com Phone: +1 646 783 7100 | Fax: +1 646 783 7161 | [email protected] Bankruptcy MVP: Ropes & Gray's Gregg Galardi By Andrew Strickler Law360, New York (December 12, 2016, 1:14 PM EST) -- The Gawker Media bankruptcy saga dominated the news this year, putting lead Gawker counsel Gregg Galardi of Ropes & Gray LLP in the center of the action and among Law360's 2016 Bankruptcy MVPs. With Gawker as his primary focus since his arrival at the firm’s New York office in February, Galardi said only some of the many twists and turns of the case were immediately apparent at the outset. But with the end of the year in sight and a Chapter 11 BANKRUPTCY approval date this week, Galardi said the matter has moved into any number of areas, including free speech and third- party litigation funding, rarely touched by bankruptcy practitioners. “It’s been amazing to see how someone could litigate with a media company and actually put a successful company out of business,” Galardi said, referring to a $140 million judgment against the company and the involvement of billionaire Peter Thiel, who funded Hulk Hogan’s invasion of privacy suit. Gregg Galardi “People may say the jury made that decision, but we still Ropes & Gray feel the judgment was incorrect and if it were not for the bankruptcy, we’d still be litigating it and that the judgment would have been eventually overturned,” Galardi said. Already an experienced bankruptcy partner when he made the move from DLA Piper, Galardi has further distinguished himself as leader of the Ropes & Gray team that negotiated Gawker Media's unusual journey through Chapter 11. -
Gawker, Thiel, and Newsworthiness Amy Gajda Tulane University Law School, [email protected]
American University Law Review Volume 67 | Issue 2 Article 10 2018 Sympathy For The evD il: Gawker, Thiel, And Newsworthiness Amy Gajda Tulane University Law School, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/aulr Part of the First Amendment Commons Recommended Citation Gajda, Amy (2018) "Sympathy For The eD vil: Gawker, Thiel, And Newsworthiness," American University Law Review: Vol. 67 : Iss. 2 , Article 10. Available at: http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/aulr/vol67/iss2/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Washington College of Law Journals & Law Reviews at Digital Commons @ American University Washington College of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in American University Law Review by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ American University Washington College of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Sympathy For The evD il: Gawker, Thiel, And Newsworthiness Keywords Hulk Hogan, Peter Thiel, individual privacy, journalists, newsworthiness, constitutionally protected press rights This article is available in American University Law Review: http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/aulr/vol67/iss2/10 RESPONSE SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: GAWKER, THIEL, AND NEWSWORTHINESS AMY GAJDA* At a time when some courts had shifted to protect privacy rights more than press rights, the Gawker website published a grainy and apparently surreptitiously recorded sex tape featuring professional wrestler Hulk Hogan. What the jury that awarded Hulk Hogan more than $140 million in his privacy lawsuit did not know is that Peter Thiel, an individual apparently motivated to bring Gawker down, had helped to bankroll the plaintiff’s case. -
The Weaponized Lawsuit Against the Media: Litigation Funding As a New Threat to Journalism
LLEVI.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/13/2017 6:40 PM THE WEAPONIZED LAWSUIT AGAINST THE MEDIA: LITIGATION FUNDING AS A NEW THREAT TO JOURNALISM LILI LEVI* This Article identifies a new front in the current war against the media— one in which billionaire private actors clandestinely fund other people’s lawsuits in an attempt to censor press entities. The use of strategic litigation to shutter media outlets constitutes a major threat to the expressive order. And the current climate of press failures, institutional disaggregation, decreasing accountability journalism, and declining public trust—the very vulnerability of the press today—significantly amplifies the chilling impact of strategic third- party funding. It does so whether the strategy is death-by-a-thousand- litigations or titanic, bankruptcy-inducing damage verdicts. Still, contrary to the assertions of both funders and their opponents, finding an appropriate response to these developments is far from easy under current law. It is neither realistic nor constitutionally palatable to prohibit third-party funding in media cases. Such funding can play a valuable role by ensuring that even penurious individuals can vindicate viable claims against media organizations. Yet existing champerty and maintenance jurisprudence cannot adequately address the problem. A richer, more multivalent approach is called for. In that spirit, this Article proposes a realistic four-pronged strategy: (1) judicial discretion to order disclosure of third-party funding in discovery; (2) waiver or reduction of appeal bonds in third-party-funded media cases where such bonds would effectively make verdicts against the media unappealable; (3) development of counter-funding strategies and support of third-party-funding * Professor of Law, University of Miami School of Law. -
1 ROPES & GRAY LLP Gregg M. Galardi Jonathan P. Gill Jonathan M. Agudelo Stacy A. Dasaro 1211 Avenue of the Americas New Yo
16-11700-smb Doc 58 Filed 06/20/16 Entered 06/20/16 23:49:31 Main Document Pg 1 of 115 ROPES & GRAY LLP Gregg M. Galardi Jonathan P. Gill Jonathan M. Agudelo Stacy A. Dasaro 1211 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10036-8704 Telephone: (212) 596-9000 Facsimile: (212) 596-9090 Proposed Counsel to the Debtors and Debtors in Possession UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK ------------------------------------------------------x : In re : Chapter 11 : 1 Gawker Media LLC, et al., : Case No. 16-11700 (SMB) : Debtors. : (Jointly Administered) : ------------------------------------------------------x NOTICE OF DEBTORS’ APPLICATION FOR ENTRY OF AN ORDER AUTHORIZING THE DEBTORS TO RETAIN HOULIHAN LOKEY AS INVESTMENT BANKER FOR THE DEBTORS NUNC PRO TUNC TO THE PETITION DATE PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that a hearing (the “Hearing”) on the application (the “Application,” a copy of which is attached hereto) of the above-captioned debtors and debtors in possession (collectively, the “Debtors”) to retain and employ Houlihan Lokey Capital, Inc. as their investment banker effective nunc pro tunc to the Petition Date will be held before the Honorable Stuart M. Bernstein of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District 1 The last four digits of the taxpayer identification number of the debtors are: Gawker Media LLC (0492); Gawker Media Group, Inc. (3231); and Kinja Kft. (5056). The offices of Gawker Media and Gawker Media Group, Inc. are located at 114 Fifth Avenue, 2d Floor, New York, NY 10011. Kinja Kft.’s offices are located at Andrassy ut 66. 1062 Budapest, Hungary. 1 56996818_6 16-11700-smb Doc 58 Filed 06/20/16 Entered 06/20/16 23:49:31 Main Document Pg 2 of 115 of New York (the “Court”), in Room 723, One Bowling Green, New York, New York 10004- 1408, on July 7, 2016 at 2:00 p.m. -
Revenge Litigation Funding, and the Fate of the Fourth Estate
University of Miami Law Review Volume 72 Number 1 Article 7 11-16-2017 Eat Your Vitamins and Say Your Prayers: Bollea v. Gawker, Revenge Litigation Funding, and the Fate of the Fourth Estate Nicole K. Chipi Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/umlr Part of the Litigation Commons Recommended Citation Nicole K. Chipi, Eat Your Vitamins and Say Your Prayers: Bollea v. Gawker, Revenge Litigation Funding, and the Fate of the Fourth Estate, 72 U. Miami L. Rev. 269 (2017) Available at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/umlr/vol72/iss1/7 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Miami Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NOTES Eat Your Vitamins and Say Your Prayers: Bollea v. Gawker, Revenge Litigation Funding, and the Fate of the Fourth Estate NICOLE K. CHIPI* In August 2016, Gawker.com shut down after 14 years of—more often than not—controversial online publishing. The website was one of several Gawker Media properties crushed under the weight of a $140 million jury verdict awarded to Terry Bollea (better known as former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan), in a lawsuit financed by eccentric Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel. Thiel’s clandes- tine legal campaign was part of a vendetta against Gawker Media, a venture he confirms was singularly focused on bankrupting the company through litigation. -
Hackers Obtain Email Addresses of Ipad 3G Owners 9 June 2010
Hackers obtain email addresses of iPad 3G owners 9 June 2010 identify a subscriber on AT&T's network known as the ICC IDS, which stands for integrated circuit card identifier. In a statement, AT&T acknowledged there had been a data breach and issued an apology to customers who had been affected. "AT&T was informed by a business customer on Monday of the potential exposure of their iPad ICC IDS," AT&T said. A shadowy hacking group obtained the email addresses "The only information that can be derived from the of over 114,000 owners of Apple iPads by exploiting a ICC IDS is the email address attached to that vulnerability at US telecom giant AT&T, a Silicon Valley device," it said. website reported on Wednesday. "This issue was escalated to the highest levels of the company and was corrected by Tuesday; and we have essentially turned off the feature that A shadowy hacking group obtained the email provided the email addresses," AT&T said. addresses of over 114,000 owners of Apple iPads by exploiting a vulnerability at US telecom giant "We are continuing to investigate and will inform all AT&T, a Silicon Valley website reported on customers whose email addresses and ICC IDS Wednesday. may have been obtained," AT&T said. "At this point, there is no evidence that any other customer Valleywag, a property of Gawker Media, said the information was shared." hackers turned over the email list and it contained the email addresses of a number of high-profile Valleywag said Goatse Security has previously iPad users including US business leaders, revealed vulnerabilities in the Firefox and Safari politicians and military officials.