The Blogosphere demonstrates free market justice.
The Daily Demarche has long been linked to
Cheese and Crackers, the blog that hit it big with the Tsunami videos. It seems that recently Jordon Golson, the lead blogger there, had a run in with a
13 year old Conservative blogger over content ownership and credit for materials published that were "borrowed" from
another blog. Other bloggers picked this up and dubbed it
Insta-rage. From there all hell broke loose (read the comments on the linked blogs). Full disclosure: I like Jordan, and his blog and commentary and have exchanged numerous e-mails with him.
My only comment on the actual issue is yes, Jordan over reacted. He also apologized. Austin has apologized for "stealing" a picture from another blog. I think perhaps Austin's parents over reacted by taking away his blog, but he is 13 and they are his parents, not me. To me that should be the end of the saga.
Of course it is not, and I am fascinated by the reaction of the blogosphere. I am not an economist, but this seems like a perfect model for the free market in action. A "product" was stolen, ill gains were realized (Austin's "insta-launch"), a third party (Jordan, a figurative "trial lawyer") over reacted and a large portion of the blogosphere quickly weighed in and forced Jordon to apologize.
Bloggers have been quick to call the MSM to task over faulty story lines and failures to fact check. And now we are successfully policing ourselves, and making an effort to keep each other in line. Are the MSM and overzealous regulators in the U.S. paying attention? I doubt it.
Jordon and Austin- I wish you both the best. I hope to see both blogs producing and pushing the envelope. To all who have weighed in on this, even the less than polite, thanks for restoring my faith in a free market , even if it is only an economy of ideas traded in bits and bytes.
End of post.