Perez Hilton Gets Sued Again

By Jonathan Bailey • Feb 23rd, 2007 • Category: Articles, DMCA, Legal Issues, News

Gossip blogger Perez Hilton is being sued by Universal Studios for copyright infringement after he posted a topless photograph of Jennifer Aniston on his popular blog.

The photo, which was from the movie “The Break Up“, never made it to the final movie as it was cut out in post production. Universal is claiming that the photo was “stolen” by Perez and is suing for unspecified damages.

Perez Hilton, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, was also sued for copyright infringement back in December by paparazzi photo agency X17 for illegal use of their photographs.

There appears to be some disagreement about whether or not Hilton removed the photo in a prompt fashion. According to paragraph 13 of the original complaint, Universal both emailed and snail mailed the cease and desist notice to Hilton on February 6. According to Universal’s attorneys, they only filed suit after both were ignored.

Hilton’s lawyer, however, said the letter ended up in Arizona and that Hilton never received the notice. According to him, once Hilton learned of the complaint, the content was removed.

There is some suspicion on Hilton’s part that the lawsuit stems less from the alleged copyright violations and more from his bashing of Aniston on his blog. There, Hilton frequently refers to Aniston as “Maniston” and pokes fun at her regularly.

Hilton, at this time, has had no comment on the matter as he says he has not been severed with the lawsuit, a process that could take several days or weeks.

Issues For Webmasters

There are several issues in this case that pertain directly to Webmasters, both in terms of protecting their content and handling infringement, especially by users, on their site.

  • The Missing Cease and Desist: If Universal is being honest about having sent the letter and Hilton is being honest about not getting it, then the question becomes this: What happened? The whois information for the domain points to Los Angeles, where Hilton is located, and his email is easily found on the site. What could cause such a fundamental breakdown in communication?
  • The Lack of a DMCA: Universal, for whatever reason, decided to not send a DMCA to get the image taken down. It could be a sign that they were looking to sue Hilton and didn’t want the work removed prematurely or that they felt the cease and desist would be more effective. Why they chose this route will be a case study for some time to come.
  • Fair Use and Parody Arguments: Contrary to my prior predictions, it appears that Hilton is going to stand his ground and try to fight these lawsuits, possibly to his detriment. He is claiming that he has a fair use right to use the photos as his intent is to parody and lampoon. Whether or not his arguments succeed could have a great impact on how bloggers and Webmasters reuse content.

These cases, much like the Michael Crook case, will likely have a lasting impact on how content is shared and reused on the Web. Anyone with an interest in content-related issues should be following them closely.

Needless to say, I will be and I will be posting updates on this site.

Conclusions

Many bloggers do what Perez Hilton does. Most never receive as much as a cease and desist letter, let alone a lawsuit.

Hilton’s difference is two fold. First, through his blog, he has made a large amount of money. This makes him an easy target since companies can justify the expense of going after him.

Second, he has earned the ire of copyright holders not only through his jokes and insults, but also through his flaunting of the law and his unwillingness to offer even basic attribution. He has made a good living off of other’s work, but has not even paid a token price in return.

Also, if X17 is being honest, he has also repeatedly ignored cease and desist letters shunned attempts to reach amicable agreements, instead hiding behind “fair use” to justify his actions.

Sadly for Perez, his use is anything but fair. Though there is clearly some attempt at parody, his use is not transformative. The photos play the same role that the originals were designed to.

What’s frustrating is that these cases will likely become precedent for future copyright law cases on the Web. If Perez wins, fair use would likely be expanded to the point that copyright law would almost be meaningless. If the companies win, it’s likely that the language could farther narrow the fair use provision by adding more definition to it.

In short, no one wins.

I hope that this is not the case, but that appears to be where things are heading right now.

Other Coverage

The Smoking Gun
Celebrity Smack
Staralicious
Concurring Opinions

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Jonathan Bailey is The Webmaster and author of Plagiarism Today, which he founded in 2005 as a way to help Webmasters going through content theft problems get accurate information and stay up to date on the rapidly-changing field. He is also a consultant to Webmasters and companies to help them devise practical content protection strategies and develop good copyright policies.
Email this author | All posts by Jonathan Bailey

6 Responses »

  1. According to Staralicious on February 23rd, 2007 at 6:59 pm:

    There is another element to this topic regarding the X17 and Hilton. Now this is pure speculation on my part, but I have been rather suspicious that the entire X17 suit was nothing more than for the purpose of generating publicity for both sites.

    It may have originally been serious, but as a lot was played out on both sites and with the lack of follow-up action, I feel that X17 and Perezhilton have reached an agreement where he has ceased his previous action of using their images, with no further legal measures taken.

    The amount of publicity and, correspondingly traffic that the story generated, obviously helped both sites.

    On the specific issue of Hilton fighting in court, in the Universal case, he would have to use the arguments you mention for his defense. For the suits brought by paparazzi agencies, I think if any suit came to court, you may see him use another argument about the ownership rights of the individual themselves in the photos. This would have the potential to set precedent pertaining to the paparazzi themselves.

    Just my thoughts, but where Perezhilton is concerned, there is always a large element of fabrication and manipulation.

  2. According to My opinion on February 24th, 2007 at 10:12 am:

    I think that beyond the copyright infrigement, there are countless other issues involving PHilton.com which the laws truly deserve looking into for the good of us all:

    For one, Perez still portrays himself as a simple little blogger - which is a convenient label to hide behind to slander, bully, dehumanize, and just plain destroy personalities and guise - while racking in advertising money for it.

    Yet at the same time, he presents himself as a serious news organisation in the media (a business), makes thousands of dollars on it as you observed, and gets free exposure in the press & TV which results in traffic for him.

    But that’s where it ends. Cause his enterprise blatantly refuses to take any of the responsibilities that come with the stature it is being given..and really I can’t imagine any other news organisation or business which could get away with what all the slander, with the law allowing it.

    Bottom line: I think Perez’s site is a very dangerous enteprise, precisely because it is currently being misrepresented to everyone. It has nothing to do with internet freedom at all..

  3. According to Virgo on February 24th, 2007 at 4:23 pm:

    Hello

    Goood blog you have there. Lot of goodies !

    There is a copyright violation protest going on against Yahoo. Yeah corpo gianto Yahoo plagiarizing contents from bloggers

    chk out de blog.
    http://myinjimanga.blogspot.com/2007/02/bloggers-protest-event-against-yahoo.html

  4. According to Staralicious on February 27th, 2007 at 8:11 am:

    Hi, I thought you might be interested in something I found tonight from a pingback on my site. It is that scourge of the Internet, Website content stealing. You can see my site, http://www.staralicious.com, then take a look at http://chefbuddy.info/.

    It would appear that he is scraping my content for blackhat CPC marketing.

    I have had this happen before. The last time, I contacted the host of the site (one of the largest hosts on the Internet) I did not receive any response to the emails I sent them. I could not get the email address of the person doing it, so have to resort to a little JavaScript file that redirected their links to a site on anal prolapse. After about one week, I received a pretty nasty email from the person stealing the content. Still it worked pretty well, as he no longer linked to my site.

    But it is annoying, as it impacts on Google ranking and earnings etc, not to mention page views.

    Let me know if you are interested and would like more details.

    Regards Ross…

  5. According to Perez Hilton Sued AGAIN over Aniston Photo by The Gossip Rag on March 2nd, 2007 at 1:33 am:

    [...] movie, “The Break Up,” with the express intent of profiting. Let’s pray they win. Plagiarism Today has a better writeup than this, but no [...]

  6. According to PlagiarismToday » 2008: Looking Ahead on January 2nd, 2008 at 12:17 pm:

    [...] I honestly didn’t expect these lawsuits to reach 2008 but, since they have, it seems likely that they will come to some kind of a [...]

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