Retraction and Revision of Online Works

Recently, a webcomic artist whose comic I read posted a strip which, unbeknownst to ... em*, duplicated a punchline from another strip, several weeks earlier. Ey got many emails informing em of this, and therefore changed the punchline panel an hour or two after it went up. Ey also posted a note, informing eir readers of the edit.

I could tell who this comic artist was, and what the change was ey made, but I won't – it's irrelevant to this essay. What I'm interested in is the idea that one can publish a work on the web and then change it after it's already been viewed.

( The idea of revising already published works is not new... )