Read, Bled, and Spread

John Jay Daly, venerable direct marketer and postal expert, recently submitted a Letter to the Editor of The Washington Post. He was contacted by The Post’s editorial department, which had some additional needs:

• We need to verify that you wrote the letter and did not acquire any portion of it from other sources. [Other than properly attributed quotes.]
• We need to know that you are using your real name.
• Did you send or post this letter or a similar item to any other media, internet forums [including washingtonpost.com], or blogs?
• We need to know, if it is not already mentioned, what your involvement, if any, is with the subject matter.

Looks like The Post would prefer that contributors not share opinion letters with “any other media, internet forum, or blog.” How The Post will manage this puzzles. Web content is being picked up, tracked, and replicated by information-randy rabbits on steroids. Even blog comments are being tracked with programs like BackType and you can be sure smart companies are reading blogs (one of my posts mentioning ChaCha received a corporate acknowledgement). Exclusive content? When everything anybody posts is read, bled, and spread... how to be exclusive?