Out of my deep respect for Bob, our joint readers, and in the spirit of collaboration, on February 15 I offered to make the Sonoma reviews available to TWA readers for free, on my new platform, once the article had been written and posted. TWA declined.
I’m not a partisan as between AG and RP, so I ask innocently if I understand this correctly: these are reviews some of most of which AG made while employed by TWA, and now he’s going to publish them on his new website, and he offered to let RP’s customers come view them for free on AG’s new website, but RP declined.
I don’t see RP being in the wrong on any of that, particularly in declining to collaborate with a program clearly designed to move a bunch of his subscribers over to familiarize themselves with AG’s new competitor site, based on content some or most of which RP paid AG to create.
But maybe there are details outside of this story that give it some context (because I don’t care too much about taking sides as between critics, I didn’t follow the long thread about AG’s departure from TWA).
Chris, for sure one detail wrong is that AG was not an employee of TWA (he was an independent contractor.)
Other than that, I agree this is a move to get TWA subscribers to look at his site, which RMP understandably declined. AG’s making them available for free to anyone accomplishes this anyway and makes TWA look like they’re willing to deny their subscribers something in the name of holding market share, which is where this make RMP/TWA look bad.
I’m neutral on the theory that anybody did anything wrong. It seems like everybody is technically fine ethically but TWA was outmaneuvered again.
Has it been confirmed that AG was paid in any way for this?
I don’t know the terms of his agreement with WA, but it wouldn’t be unusual for an IC to get paid (and re-imbursed for expenses) after the job is completed.
Not that it would matter much to me… I think Galloni has behaved pretty unprofessionally here, and the mere fact that he hasn’t been paid yet wouldn’t change my opinion.
Galloni makes it clear the reviews aren’t completed. Given he left TWA last month and the reviews are not yet completed, he could not have been paid for a product since it isn’t completed yet.
Only Bob, Antonio, and Lisa really know how things went down. They did. Done.
Regardless, now Antonio is willing to make content freely available that otherwise people would have had to pay WA or AG to see. Of course there is some self-interest on his part, but it is my personal belief that his core motivation is trying to do right by the consumer. I find it hard to criticize him for that. Some folks seem to disagree and only see self interest in his actions. OK, that’s your call.
If it’s a typical work for hire, it’s the WA’s property… anything he was done while being contracted by WA is their property. Otherwise every single independent contractor doing a work of art, would complete 90% of their work, quit and then say they don’t owe jack. I would think this falls into it as well, but who knows what their contract says.
Who owns the reviews is a matter of contract which none of us are privy to. I’m willing to give Antonio the benefit of the doubt that he has legal grounds based on his contract to do what he’s doing.
I’m not disputing that.
But his response adds up to a flat-out “Screw you” to both the WA and (far more importantly) its subscribership. This is not about legally binding contracts, it’s about professionalism.
Seeing how WA has been doing business, I wouldn’t be shocked at all if there is no actual written contract and this was all done on a handshake. It’s still unbelievable to me that someone would buy this company without assurances in place that something like this couldn’t happen.