Don’t mess with us nerds

Since 2002 Chuck Olsen has been working on a documentary film entitled Blogumentary.  I’ve been very supportive of the project because I enjoy both blogging and documentary filmmaking.  In fact I bought an early version of the film on DVD and it’s awesome. (long tail in full effect)

So, last Friday I sent Chuck an email telling him that John Hart, some "Hollywood producer" was trying to rip off his documentary.  Chuck hadn’t even heard of the project and seemed unfazed at first.  However, Chuck quickly realized just how similar the project sounded to his own film.  Chuck sent off a friendly email to the guy and got a total asshole response.  The guy tried to belittle Chuck by saying only his mom reads his blog and that using the word blogumentary (a term coined by Chuck) was the same thing as using the word blog or weblog.  This dude even threatened Chuck with legal action, so he’s totally out to lunch.  Here are some screenshots of this guy’s site.

So what did Chuck do?  He posted about it on his blog and on the Video Blogging Yahoo Group.

What was the response?  The blogosphere responded by picking it up and John Hart started to feel the heat.  John Hart then removed the word blogumentary from his site, he gets dissed on Rocketboom, and his "documentary" subjects start dropping like flies.  What can be learned from all this?  A collaborative and honest project gets the street
cred and support it deserves from the blogosphere.  On the other hand, a selfish and dishonest project
gets rightfully put in it’s place.  More here, here, here, here, here, here.  There’s a funny ittle timeline here.  Jay did a video about it here.

Edited: I posted his email account here but I’ve since taken it off.
 

Or if you want to do something positive donate to Chuck’s trademark fund using your PayPal account.  It’s kind of weird being part of this global conversation thing.  Don’t mess with us nerds.