Perez Hilton sued for $7.5 million

[vballchica134]

A Hollywood photo agency is suing snarky gossip blogger Perez Hilton aka Mario Lavandeira, for copyright infringement. The agency claims Perez used their images on his website "without permission from the agency, thereby violating federal law."

The tabloid agency is seeking over $7.5 million dollars in damages from Perez for what they say is a loss of profits and injury to their reputation. The photo agency believes their pics have played a large part in the success and profitability of perezhilton.com, which reportedly charges between $9,000 and $16,000 a week for ad space. It costs plenty to appear next to Britney's crotch!

Perez tells TMZ, "I have yet to be personally served with this lawsuit. My lawyers and I will address the situation when we have the opportunity to review the materials."

The self-proclaimed "Gossip Gangsta," who calls a local L.A. coffee shop his "office," is currently scheduled to appear on the upcoming "Big in '06 Awards" on VH1, and on MTV's New Year's Eve special.

http://www.tmz.com/2006/11/30/perez-...r-7-5-million/

But apparently it's not just one photo agency, it's the top seven: Splash News, INF, Ramey, Bauer Griffin, WENN, Most Wanted and Flynet

Splash has the documents here: http://splashnewsonline.blogspot.com...ez-hilton.html

[spottygoose]

On a somewhat related note - does anyone know what has happened to thegossipist site? posts a highlight of perez's and other gossip site stuff. Seems to have disappeared? I need a fix!

[moomies]

hehe stupid Perez, go down!

[DVS_one]

i wish he would go down hard.. make him pay that money...

i refuse to click his link
EVER... i hate his site....

[Bellatheball]

^^ Ditto, can't stand that tool. Pay up Perez.

[moomies]

perezhilton.com, which reportedly charges between $9,000 and $16,000 a week for ad space. It costs plenty to appear next to Britney's crotch!

We coulda been doing that during 1000+ lurkers were looking at our Britney crotch thread!!!


Just a reminder to some posters.

But apparently it's not just one photo agency, it's the top seven: Splash News, INF, Ramey, Bauer Griffin, WENN, Most Wanted and Flynet

On GR we are also not allowed to post, Getty, Ramey, WENN, Splash News and WireImage photos because they've contacted the board about such copyright issues.
http://www.gossiprocks.com/forum/lat...ages-wenn.html

[DitaPage*]

Originally Posted by vballchica134

But apparently it's not just one photo agency, it's the top seven: Splash News, INF, Ramey, Bauer Griffin, WENN, Most Wanted and Flynet

Good luck Perezzzy.

[GoldDust77]

Perez Hilton sued for $7.5 million

HAHAHA!!! I can't stand Perez Hilton; i'm GLAD his arrogant fat ass is getting sued. I don't like or respect the way he kisses the asses of certain celebrities (almost always a friend or "ally" of his "pal" Parisite Hilton ) and is reletlessly outright CRUEL to many other celebrities (usually "enemies" of his pal Parisite), and i also don't like his pompous attitude which comes thru bigtime even in this article:

Perez tells TMZ, "My lawyers and I will address the situation when we have the opportunity to review the materials."

Um, if i were being sued for $7.5 MILLION DOLLARS by the top photo agencies, i would MAKE SOME TIME, PRONTO, to tend to this matter. But to this horse-faced buffoon, who seems to have an attitude that he's above most other people, he probably doesn't think it's even worth clearing out some stupid upcoming night out of tagging along pathetically with Parisite, from his social calendar, to tend to it. I hope he loses his stupid gossip site!!!

[SVZ]

You do realize that if he's sued succesfully, we'll probably have to close down as well? Same as Trent and most of the other gossip blogs that have photos.

[moomies]

we could still have the gossip section and the rest though? Stop scaring us like that svz

[SVZ]

Well yeah, but I don't think the board would be as interesting without a photo section...just think about it and stop letting your hate of Perez Hilton cloud your judgement. We're technically not supposed to copy and paste articles from other sites either...

I think a lot of people (ie magazines, etc) are pissed because he's one person who runs essentially a site that gets more traffic than the sites of the actual magazines, and he does it at no overhead and probably makes more money than the chief editor...and I doubt Perez went to college or even has any training in writing (as you can tell lol)

But then again...Youtube was bought for like 1.78 billion and almost all of it's videos are copyrighted and illegal

[DVS_one]

SVZ... i DO think you have a premium site... without photos most of us would be here ..

unless you dont want us to be...

(the only other place i go is ONTD) ... and that is because its a LJ account like i have...

[moomies]

oh well, he's a necessary evil then.

[SVZ]

I think Perez just irked them...a while ago X17 said it was OK to use their photos if you linked back to their blog, almost all of the sites did it except for Perez.

I mean personally, I think most sites would be OK to pay a licensing fee, but I think sometimes it's like $200 for one photo for like a week...it's just way too expensive

[moomies]

I think that's one of the reasons why it's so important to give source and give credit for the things we post here. Esp when something like x17 is generous enough to allow bloggers and such to use their pics only asking to be linked.

Still hate Perez though