Site Pulled for Posting Copyrighted Photos
Here’s another real example of why everyone should use caution when posting material without proper attribution and/or permission. According to CNN, the celebrity gossip site PerezHilton.com is the target of several lawsuits by various companies who found their images of celebrities posted without permission on the site. At least one company complained to the site’s hosting service and managed to convince the service to stop hosting the site because of the legal issues. The site moved to a different company earlier last week. The site’s administrator claims the use of the images falls under the fair use clause of copyright law because he’s a journalist.
June 25th, 2007 at 10:43 am
It’s about time. He’s a blogger, not a journalist. These sites need to realize that they can’t just ignore copyright laws by pretending that the drivel they write is on the same level as the NY Times.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
The key question: is it a transformative use? Hard argument when it’s paparazzi shots posted on a gossip site, IMO. Same photos in a Wikipedia article? Much better transformative use argument.
July 21st, 2007 at 10:27 pm
The Hilton Perez site features pictures (what I would consider stock photos) with someone crudely writing some photoshopped commentary on them. It seems that a lot of the celebs don’t like the gossip that’s being spread about them, so their manager’s are using Hilton’s using of their photos as an excuse to shut him up. I say why bother. I mean, is making Hilton’s job more difficult really going to shut down the massive amounts of celebrity gossip? Doubt it.
george