WILL THE REAL BLOGUMENTARY PLEASE STAND UP?

I hate to deal with negative energy in the world, but sometimes it rears its ugly head and throws up on you, completely unsolicited. You see, there's another blog documentary in the works, this one called Fifty-nine Bloggers. 2-minute interviews with each blogger, many of whom I've interviewed or chatted with. But the here's the thing: The "former Hollywood producer" refers to his film as Blogumentary, or a blogumentary, AT LEAST as often as the actual name of his film. I wrote him a nice email saying, best of luck with your cool project, and by the way it might be confusing to say things like "Blogumentary Sponsors" and "Bloggers in the Blogumentary" [Those pages are gone - here are screenshots] on your site. You know, since I already made a blog documentary by that name.

Well. I got a very nasty, wrong-headed email in return.

*** JUNE 9, 2005: I'VE REMOVED THIS EMAIL AS A COURTESY TO JOHN HART. SEE THIS POST FOR OUR EMERGING TRUCE.

Yep! Thank you, and goodnight. Remember to tip your waitstaff! I managed to be polite in my response to him yet again, and asked him not to belittle my legitimate concern, but apparently he doesn't give a rat's ass. Keep in mind, I've poured my heart and soul (and time and money) into Blogumentary since 2002, so you might say I'm a bit protective. Not overly-protective, I don't think. Do you? Anyway, I'm ready to move on now. Several Blogumentary fans came out of the woodwork in my defense. I count my lucky stars for them, and of course for my comfortable Google presence.

**** UPDATE ***** I AM NOW BEING THREATENED WITH LEGAL ACTION. SO I MAY NEED TO TAKE PARTS OF THIS POST DOWN... BLOGOSPHERE HELP! LEGAL ADVICE WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!

**** UPDATE JUNE 5: IT LOOKS LIKE MR. HART HAS REMOVED ALL REFERENCES TO BLOGUMENTARY. THANKS EVERYONE FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND ACTION ON THIS. I THINK HE'S ON THE RIGHT TRACK NOW (HOPEFULLY) -- THANKS TO YOU GUYS. BUT IT REMAINS TO BE SEEN. PLEASE STANDBY...

**** UPDATE JUNE 7: MR. HART NOW SAYS I'M THE DEVIL. (SIGH) INTERESTING, COMING FROM SOMEONE WHO WAS HELLBENT ON SUING ME FOR SLANDER. BY WHICH HE MEANT, LIBEL.

. . . . . . . . . .

MY RESPONSE

Since all the links lead to this post, I'll post my response to Mr. Hart's rantings here.

Amidst all the cataclysmic drama (best read while listening to Carmina Burana) there are a few accusations that are factually incorrect. Here's a simple timeline:

PART ONE - I emailed him this:

From:   CHUCK OLSEN
Subject: world famous blogumentary ;-)
Date: June 2, 2005 4:19:25 PM CDT
To:   JOHN HART

Greetings John,

Several bloggers recently pointed me to your documentary project,
59Bloggers. Looks like a great project! You've probably heard about
my feature blog documentary by now, called "Blogumentary":

http://blogumentary.org/

Our projects are documenting the same subject, but with a different
approach of course. (My doc is first-person, for example.) I've interviewed
a number of the same people, although many didn't make it into the
final product. I am slowly releasing the entire interviews, however.
I know of one other blog documentary in production too, which started
at BlogNashville and was linked by Glenn Reynolds.

Anyway, I'm writing because I think your web site's use of "Blogumentary"
will cause confusion with my project. Particularly, sections of your site
called "Blogumentary Sponsors" and "Bloggers in the Blogumentary".
I'm less concerned about casual lower-case references, such as
"59bloggers blogumentary" -- it's conceivable that Blogumentary has
Kleenex syndrome: The proper noun becoming the genre.

I'm don't mean to be a thorn, and I wish your project all the
success in the world. But I hope you understand that I'm protective
of all the work I've put into Blogumentary since 2002
and don't want our projects to be confused.

Best,
Chuck Olsen

http://blogumentary.org
http://blogumentary.typepad.com

PART TWO - His response. I won't publish his entire email here, but he did *not* state anything about the email being a private correspondence. Most of his email went in circles stating, incorrectly, that I can't trademark "Blogumentary" and that he'd checked with the USPTO. Then there was the nasty bit at the end.

PART THREE - My response. Trying to still be nice.

From:   CHUCK OLSEN
Subject: Re: world famous blogumentary ;-)
Date: June 2, 2005 6:22:17 PM CDT
To:   JOHN HART

Really? That's your response?

I'm honestly not trying to cause you any trouble,
or infringe on your project in any way. I'm not interested
in lawyers, or any of that jazz. I'm just an independent
filmmaker who made a film called "Blogumentary" about
the same subject as your film. What would you do in my
shoes?

(By the way, try doing a Google search on Blogumentary.)

I know your film has a different title. I'm merely asking that
you try to refer to your film by that title. Because yes, calling
your film "Blogumentary" is potentially confusing. Please don't
belittle me or my legitimate concern.

Chuck

PART FOUR - A few hours later I sent him this email, with a screenshot from this blog post to demonstrate potential confusion:

From:   CHUCK OLSEN Subject: Example of "Blogumentary" confusion Date: June 2, 2005 9:09:41 PM CDT To:   JOHN HART

Here's one example of why it's confusing. Here's a blogger saying "Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You -- Blogumentary." But obviously they're not referring to my film, they're following your use of "Blogumentary" which actually appears more times on your home page than "59 bloggers."

[screenshot from this blog]

PART FIVE - After not hearing from him and stewing over the situation, I posted about it here early June 4.

There was also an email exchange between John Hart and vlogger Michael Verdi. Verdi posted a comment on 59bloggers.com, they had a few email exchanges, then Hart threatened to post Verdi's credit report online.

PART SIX - I got the legal threat email. I can't post that email because it *did* have the "privileged communication" language.

PART SEVEN - After getting the legal threat, I put out a call for help in this blog post and to the videoblogging group. That's when word about the situation really started spreading, and a lot of people were very angry at Mr. Hart. However, I have never wished ill of his project. I have never condoned or encouraged anyone to say or do anything bad to Mr. Hart or 59bloggers. Please understand that I am not in charge of the blogosphere. I sadly lack the power to raise my hand to the sky and direct what bloggers should or shouldn't do.

I'd like to state here, now, that I don't want any bloggers harassing Mr. Hart. I'm not a fan of angry mobs, and that behavior can only make things worse for me and for the situation. I've also never asked anyone, including Nathan Peters, to contact the 59 bloggers or ask them to consider withdrawing. One of the 59 bloggers is a good friend, and I didn't even ask him to withdraw. I think there should be more blog documentaries, because there are so many interesting stories to be told. I've said that many times before.

PART EIGHT - Kent Bye, an amazingly astute and fair-minded open source documetnary filmmaker, attempts to mediate the dispute with this post: We Need Teachers -- Not Revolutionaries. I responded there. Kent then asked for Mr. Hart's side of the story, and advised us to try to find some middle ground to put this behind us.

Wishing to avoid legal action myself, and very very much wanting to put all this nastiness behind us, I sent Mr. Hart an email, subject: "an olive branch." I told Mr. Hart I was willing to do whatever it takes to find a resolution amicable to both of us, without involving the courts. I offered to remove his email excerpt, this entire post, apologize for posting the email excerpt, and throw my endorsement behind 59bloggers so he could be off and running again. I told him many bloggers were willing to give him a second chance. All I asked from him was an apology for his uncivil email, and to not refer to his film as "Blogumentary" (capitalized) since that is the title of my film.

PART NINE - Against all reason, Mr. Hart. publishes this rant, spitting on my reputation and outright lying about this entire situation. I feel very sorry for Mr. Hart, as he seems intent on destroying his own documentary and making me the scapegoat.

As the saga spreads in the allmighty blogosphere, here are my latest thoughts.

PART TEN - John Hart is interviewed on euphoricreality.net and is finally appearing reasonable. The only parts I'm concerned with, and very happy to read, are his apology to me and his intent to take down the "demon drama" page and continue his project. I, in turn, have apologized for posting part of his email and took it down. Details of our emerging truce here.