Life & Times Blog - Blog Archive - The Fight Over Celebrity Photos

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About the Story: Who owns celebrities photos? Some bloggers are intercepting digitized photos and putting them on popular websites. But the photos were taken by paparazzi for a celebrity photo company. Hena Cuevas looks at the legal battle that is brewing. (TRT: 7:57)

: BlawgSearch.com; Blogads; BuzzMachine’s “Libel and Blogs” Blog; EFF; FOXNews.com’s “Paparazzi Agency Sues Celeb Blogger Perez Hilton over Photos” Article; Guardian Unlimited’s Comment Is Free…’s “When Free Speech Isn’t” Blog; Justia.com; Law.com’s “Judge: Bloggers Entitled to Immunity under Communications Act” Article; Los Angeles Times’ “Perez Hilton Takes Their Best Shots” Article; PerezHilton.com; StockPhotoTalk’s “Gossip Gangsta Blogger Perez Hilton vs. Celebrity Photo Agency X17: IP Attorney Notes ‘Impossible to Tell Who Will Prevail’” Blog; UGO’s Actress Archives’ “Perez Hilton Sued over Use of Celebrity Photos” Article; X17 Online

The Fight Over Celebrity Photos

Publish date: January 10, 2007
Last updated: November 22, 2008

Reporter's NOTES

Hena Cuevas
A friend of mine recently started her own celebrity blog and was actually the person who suggested doing the story. It has been an interesting discussion as to what copyright law means inside the world of the internet. And just like Perez Hilton, she feels that blogs are different than traditional media, therefore, they should be allowed to play by another set of rules.

Update 4/26/07: Mario Lavandeira, aka Perez Hilton, was hit with another lawsuit on April 23, 2007. This time, five more celebrity-photo agencies are suing the blogger for more than seven million dollars, claiming copyright infringement. The agencies are Splash, Bauer-Griffin, Flynet, INF and London Entertainment Pictures.

Insider Viewpoints

Libels laws are outmoded and increasingly dangerous, for they threaten to chill and silence the voice of the public, even as we finally have our forum to speak: the internet. I say that we need libel laws less today.

Law professor and blogger Susan Crawford once suggested…that libel laws are out of date in a time when the victims of defamation have the means of response via the internet that they never had in print or broadcast. So the fear of litigation and loss is starting to pile up.

And my fear, in turn, is that this gives counsel to media and technology companies, as well as individual citizens the world around, the arguments to kill interaction and citizens’ media — just as they come into their own — because they are becoming just too risky…I dread returning to a world of centralized, controlled, filtered and official content. We, the citizens, will lose our voice because no one will want to risk speaking or letting us speak.

--Excerpt taken from Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free…’s “When Free Speech Isn’t” Blog by Jeff Jarvis

I think the Fair-Use exception cannot be applied if you grab an image (and there’s some criminal energy behind the way Perez Hilton gets his images nowadays…), publish it on your blog with the primary intention to make money without the stolen content through advertisement you run on your website, either if the image is digitally altered or not, like PerezHilton.com. That’s Commercial Use, not Fair Use any longer, of external content that is grabbed without permission.

And for using images commercially, you have to pay. That’s it.

Perez Hilton doesn’t credit X17. He doesn’t even link back.

Instead, he grabs. Next, the main intention of Perez Hilton is less to discuss newsworthy events of the rich and famous, rather than to earn the big money with stolen content.

He did not only do it once or twice. Instead, he does it “two dozen or more times a day.”…

--Excerpt taken from StockPhotoTalk’s “Gossip Gangsta Blogger Perez Hilton Vs. Celebrity Photo Agency X17" Blog by Andy Goetze

Mario “Perez Hilton” Lavandeira has forced X17 to protect our images through legal means after failed efforts to work things out with him directly. X17 is a content provider, just like the movie studios, record labels and TV networks, and just like the rest of the “industry,” we are fighting to protect our business in the digital age.

“Perez” claims that he’s fighting for “bloggers’ rights” (although no law allows bloggers to take content that isn’t theirs and use it without paying), while X17 is fighting for the right of all content producers to protect their work and livelihood. Perez’s illegal use of our images has hurt our sales and has taken traffic away from our own site.

Perez reduces days and weeks of work by our team of photographers to a simple right-click and then profits through high-priced ads on his site. While his writing may be witty, would he have the traffic on his site if it weren’t for the great photos? We suspect that we’ll get the answer to this question in the near future.

Brandy Navarre
X17 Online

Although no bright line exists as to what constitutes fair use, courts generally weigh four factors when deciding whether or not a third party’s use of copyrighted material qualifies as fair use: 1) the purpose and character of the use; 2) the nature of the copyrighted work; 3) the amount and substantiality of the portion taken; and 4) the effect of the use upon the potential market. In the PerezHilton.com case, a court will have to decide whether drawing scribbles on photos really passes as social commentary or is just an attempt to manipulate fair-use laws.

This poses an interesting question because the photos are “facts” and “newsworthy,” which favors Perez Hilton. However, by reproducing the photos in whole, PerezHilton.com also damages the market for celebrity photos for Websites and publications that pay for exclusive use of those photos to the copyright holder. My guess is that PerezHilton.com will lose because the court will see the scribbles not as social commentary, but as a way of skirting copyright laws while impacting the copyright holder’s marketability of the photos.

Tim Stanley
CEO
Justia.com and BlawgSearch.com

COMMUNITY VIEWPOINTS

02.09.2007 | 11:36 pm
In my opinion, and it is just an opinion, I think that if a photograph was taken in a studio with arrangements between a celebrity and the photographer or the company for which the photographer works, then there should be a copyright situation enforced, but if a picture was taken outside by someone who claims that the celebrity’s image is fair game in public, then it should also be fair game if anyone gets a hold of the image. Actually, I do not think that anyone should be able to take anyone else’s picture without their consent, especially if someone intends to make money from the photograph of their image.

Personally, I don’t need to see another picture of some celebrity whom I already have seen before. I already know what they look like, so if there is a news story about them, you can use an authorized photo of them, some generic photo or an artist’s rendition for that person.

If a fan wants to see an image of a favorite celebrity, then we could pay to see them in an authorized magazine with authorized photos, we could pay to see them in one of their movies at the theatre or on a DVD or we could see them on one of their authorized websites if we want to keep up with their day-to-day activities. If paparazzi or even news people want to take a picture or video of someone, then they should have to be polite and ask the person if it is okay to record video and obtain a signature or some form of written consent for a photograph.

Whatever happened to privacy and politeness? In this world of ever-increasing invasion of privacy, we all need to start taking steps toward more rules and regulations for privacy situations.

How would you feel if you were subject to tons of people who are constantly getting in your way of everything that you did throughout the entire day everyday? When I see these people yelling and crawling over each other and in the faces of others, it really makes me ill to see such rudeness. If you want to talk about fairness in copyright, then I believe that this is the way it should be, but of course, these people who take these pictures do not want to talk about this type of copyright fairness because it would destroy their parasitic lifestyle and they would have to learn how to be courteous, more creative and business-like.

Dan O. - Chino Hills, California

01.10.2007 | 8:17 pm
“Perez” is clearly in flagrant disrespect of not only copyright laws, but also basic fair play and sportsmanship. His blog is childish and often cruel, not funny or newsy.

X17 MUST pursue its case to protect the rights of journalists or anyone who works hard to maintain ownership, copyrights, trademarks, etc. Mario aka Perez is nothing but a celebrity wanna-be and THIEF! Please do not promote him or his site — it only debases your own integrity.

Jay R - Los Angeles, California

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