Bloggers can start feeling like their voice is powerful, but the power may be vaporized in the face of multibillion dollar companies. Jason Kottke, who has had a great running fascination with Ken Jenning’s wild Jeopardy marathon, apparently is being threatened by Sony (who owns the show and likely 1/3 of the planet) is spanking Kotke for posting some audio spoilers to the last show.
Things may be a little quieter around here in the short term as I deal with some stuff going on in the real world. One of the reasons for the silence is that my legal difficulties with Sony about the whole Ken Jennings thing have yet to be resolved. I can’t say too much about it (soon perhaps), but it sure has had a chilling effect on my enthusiasm for continuing to maintain kottke.org. As an individual weblogger with relatively limited financial and legal resources, I worry about whether I can continue to post things (legal or not) that may upset large companies and result in lawsuits that they can afford and I cannot.
This would be pretty sad if the suits bring down kottke.org, a beacon of web design brightness, social commentary, and some of the wackiest pieces of the web (remainders) anywhere.
Power, or the illusion of it, is fleeting, very fleeting.
