Mario Lavandeira, 28, is not just another celebrity gossip blogger. His blog, Perez Hilton, receives ~3 million unique visitors per day [you read it correct, that's per day]. If you ever thought of advertising on Perez Hilton blog, a 150x200 pixel ad running for a week would cost you a whooping $9K. [Compare that with TechCrunch where a 30-day ad campaign costs just $10K or even BoingBoing where a 125x125 text ad costs only $350 for a week. ]
Perez Hilton is written by just one blogger who publishes more than two dozen stories in one day single-hand. His blog has close to ~7k entries and half a million comments from blog readers. Simply amazing.
Unlike Hollywood magazines and gossip tabloids, Perez Hilton has no reporters or paparazzi on his payroll for capturing images of Britney Spears' Crotch or pregnant Katie Holmes and other celebrity shots that the world is so obsessed about.
He usually sources the pictures from the internet, a practice not liked by the media companies. In one case, Hilton had somehow obtained and posted the photos even before the actual owners had a chance to put them on its own website.
Now X17, a paparazzi photo agency, has decided to slap a $7.5 million lawsuit on Perez alleging that he has used 51 photos without permission, payment or credit.
Hilton is not willing to give up and says that he is fighting for the entire blogger industry. Will be a very interesting case to watch.
Find this article at: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/12/worlds-most-popular-blog-perez-hilton.html
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
3 million unique visitors per day , how much she must be earning per day.
Written on 17/12/06 5:47 PM
Amit,
1)Whats your opinion about posting pictures found on internet?
2)For posting pictures on Labnol Do you take permission from their sources?
Written on 17/12/06 7:56 PM
Good news. He’s a pig-headed thief who had this coming to him. I hope he loses his case and gets thrown in prison or forced to pay the $7.2 million or something. Plus, most of his site’s trash. It’s not a celeb gossip blog but rather a celeb bash blog. He’s very rude, crude and outrageously obnoxious (a lot of celeb gossip authors are in a sense, but he crosses the line WAY too much). He actually takes pictures of celeb’s kids and babies and writes junk about them, saying they’re ugly, etc. He just has a rotten attitude and needs to get over himself and pull his head out of his buttocks. Hopefully this experience will help him tame down a bit and lighten up, but I doubt it.
Written on 18/12/06 2:41 AM
Legally yes, we all need to take permissions for using any image which is under a copyright.
Written on 18/12/06 6:55 AM
Plus, most of his site’s trash. It’s not a celeb gossip blog but rather a celeb bash blog. He’s very rude, crude and outrageously obnoxious (a lot of celeb gossip authors are in a sense, but he crosses the line WAY too much). He actually takes pictures of celeb’s kids and babies and writes junk about them, saying they’re ugly, etc. He just has a rotten attitude and needs to get over himself and pull his head out of his buttocks.
LOL ! This is precisely the reason why his site is famous in the first place.
Written on 18/12/06 9:29 AM
The blog has 21 blogads unit so well may be he is earning 9000x21 = 189k per week and 27k per day...:) Thats really huge
Written on 18/12/06 2:29 PM
3 million hits a day to read his slander?! Popular taste!
Written on 18/12/06 3:35 PM
I am just reading the article 'Quite No Longer' on perezhilton.com & as per that
"Brandy Navarre, who co-owns X17 with her husband, Francois Navarre, said the agency is suing the owner of http://www.perezhilton.com not just because he doesn't pay or credit them, but also because they don't like his attitude.
While X17 has agreements with many gossip blogs -- Pink IsTheNewBlog, PopSugar and SocialiteLife, among others -- allowing them to post photos with proper credit and a link back to the X17 website, Navarre said she was tired of constantly reminding Hilton to credit X17 and had finally given up."
I think the people who sued the company in question are very clear that if proper credit is given to the pictures by linking back to the pictures, they have no problem. As per me also if proper credit is given to the pictures or posts by linking back to the pictures & posts, that is adequate & people have no problem with that.
Written on 18/12/06 9:10 PM
Have you noticed all the media these days taking their pictures, stories and quotes from bloggers? They better watch who they sue, because if they win they might just set precedence for the bloggers to sue them back and win even bigger.
Written on 18/12/06 10:57 PM
If he doesn't do something before the court date and it does go to court, he'll lose. He's not parodying the people, he's presenting copyrighted photos on his site without paying for them or being given permission as you need to do by law. He is trying to say that Fair Use permits him to use without permission or payment, pictures that others have taken. Fair Use allows for people to use parts of a work when analyzing or criticizing the work itself, but he isn't analyzing the work (the picture), he's writing about the people in the pictures, which is a huge difference.
The four factors of Fair Use:
1. The Transformative Factor: The Purpose and Character of Your Use - perez 0, x17 1
2. The Nature of the Copyrighted Work - perez 0, x17 2 (as I understand it, perezhilton.com acquired and used some photos before they could be sold, thus making them useless to others)
3. The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken - perez 0, x17 3
4. The Effect of the Use Upon the Potential Market - perez 0, x17 4
Total score - perez 0, x17 4 PEREZ LOSES!
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html
By the way, the media really needs to do a better job of covering this instead of acting like they have no idea what Fair Use is. It lives by it, yet doesn't know how to cover this story - perezhilton is so obviously breaking Fair Use that nobody could write an accurate story about this without pointing out how he's breaking all four factors of it.
Written on 19/12/06 5:28 AM