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The relentless pursuit of scoop/exclusive credit is a die-hard pastime on this, our Internet. At Gawker, we tend to prefer a more squishy concept of content ownership; information wants to be free, or at least infinitely reproducible without cost, man. Nevertheless, we do try to provide credit where credit is due, and that's the subject of a witch hunt by the greasy gearheads at Jalopnik. Seems they managed to con some exclusive pre-release Chevrolet commercials out of General Motors, though unfortunately the "final" commercials did not feature the promised nuclear explosions. They did feature lots of patriotic imagery and the heartland musical stylings of John Mellon Cougarcamp, which apparently appealed enough to Stephen Colbert and The Colbert Report that the show reproduced the video with no thanks to poor Jalopnik. "When a journalist or 'web logger' takes something not their own and slaps a pre-roll on the front of it with their name and puts it up on YouTube, that's as good as if they made it themselves," claims Jalopnik righteously. Typical mainstream media, surviving parasitically on blog content, just like always.

On Notice! Stephen Colbert Steals Rightfully Stolen Video, Jalopnik Demands An Apology [Jalopnik]