Snopes, the fact-checking website, is facing a critical situation due to a legal dispute with Proper Media, an outside vendor that allegedly claims ownership of the site. Despite Snopes terminating its contract, Proper Media continues to control the website's hosting and advertising revenue, jeopardizing Snopes' financial stability. The site has launched a crowdfunding campaign, successfully raising over $500,000 in just 24 hours to address its operational needs. The ownership dispute complicates the resolution, as it involves claims regarding the sale of shares and control over Bardav, the parent company of Snopes.
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Continued...Snopes, a site dedicated to fact-checking everything from political claims to urban legends, is pleading with its readers for donations as it weathers a complicated legal battle.
Snopes is “in danger of closing its doors,” the staff wrote Monday in http://www.snopes.com/save-snopes/?ncid=edlinkushpmg00000313 to readers, because “an outside vendor” they previously hired has allegedly taken control of the site.
According to Snopes staff, the unnamed vendor has prevented Snopes employees from modifying the page, has continued to place ads on the site and has not paid Snopes any of the revenue from the ads ― the only source of income for the site ― despite Snopes terminating its contract with the vendor.
We had previously contracted with an outside vendor to provide certain services for Snopes.com. That contractual relationship ended earlier this year, but the vendor will not acknowledge the change in contractual status and continues to essentially hold the Snopes.com website hostage. Although we maintain editorial control (for now), the vendor will not relinquish the site’s hosting to our control, so we cannot modify the site, develop it, or — most crucially — place advertising on it. The vendor continues to insert their own ads and has been withholding the advertising revenue from us.
Our legal team is fighting hard for us, but, having been cut off from all revenue, we are facing the prospect of having no financial means to continue operating the site and paying our staff (not to mention covering our legal fees) in the meanwhile.
If they own the domain name (i.e. it's registered in the name of their organization) and have access to their domain registrar's control panel, they can change their DNS to point the domain name to a new site on a different hosting service.UsableThought said:if this were the only problem, it could be solved - temporarily, for sure, and possibly permanently if necessary - by moving the editorial content to a new URL with a different hosting service and simply letting readers know of the change.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/business/media/snopes-crowdfunding-proper-media.html?_r=0The site, which gets all of its revenue from advertising, created a crowdfunding page on Monday, raising $500,000 from readers in one day to remain operational indefinitely. It says that Proper Media, the vendor that runs its advertising services, has withheld the site’s revenue and has refused to relinquish control of the site. That leaves Bardav — the company that owns and operates Snopes — with no way of moving the site to a new host or installing its own ads, said David Mikkelson, a founder of the site.
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Proper Media considers itself an owner of Bardav, not a vendor. As Proper Media tells it, Barbara Mikkelson, Mr. Mikkelson’s ex-wife, sold her 50 percent share to Proper Media in 2016, but for tax purposes it was bought in the name of its individual members “for the benefit of Proper Media.” Two Proper Media officers, Drew Schoentrup and Christopher Richmond, would get 20 percent stakes in Bardav, while three others would own 3.33 percent stakes.
Proper Media said the deal included Mr. Schoentrup taking a seat on a two-person board alongside Mr. Mikkelson.
But Mr. Mikkelson, who owns the other 50 percent of the Bardav shares, said that Mr. Schoentrup does not sit on the board, and that the five shareholders should be viewed individually, as opposed to collectively, giving Proper Media equal ownership.