From X17:
If you’re gonna steal pix, you’re gonna get burned! Mario Lavandeira decided to infringe one of our images, yet again — as he does usually at least a few times each week — but this time we caught him with a decoy …
X17 sent out this week-old pix of Lindsay Lohan to our UK clients and captioned them like this:
First pix of Lindsay Lohan since dramatic crash with her Mercedes SL 65 in Beverly Hills May 27, 2007 carrying medication May 27, 2007 X17online EXCLUSIVEMr. Hilton published the information from the caption and the caption’s a FAKE, JUST LIKE HIM! And though he always claims he doesn’t know the origins of the images he uses that are ours — you can see that our captions clearly state that the images are from X17. That’s what you get when you read Perez!
The real, exclusive Lindsay photos from early this morning are coming soon on X17!
In fact, every image of Lindsay that Perez has used so far, to illustrate the story of Lohan’s DUI, is an X17 image. See you in court, Mario!
Here’s the link to the story Perez ran, along with some screen captures for when he pulls it.
It’s funny that Perez seems to have something against X17 specifically. When Creative Age publications called him out on using one of their images for his logo, he removed the logo and changed his favicon. Now this may be, in part, because I think he’ll probably try to make a satire case for his use of X17’s images, and that shit probably won’t fly with his logo (not that it’s likely to fly for the rest of the pics, either). But he uses Buzz Foto’s images with their watermarks, and always credits them. Most of the rest of his pics come from WireImage. Every now and then he’ll steal from Splash or Flynet, but most of his stolen images are X17’s, and despite their lawsuit, he continues to do so. I think this shit is personal.
I hope Perez gets what’s coming to him, just like all his little so-called “pals” (Valtrex Wonk-Eye, Nicole “I need a sandwich” Richie, etc.) He is a pathetic waste of space, both on servers and in reality. He is nothing but a leech desperate for fame which he DOESN’T deserve. He’s no better than Dina Lohan.
I hope all the blog readers who put too much interest in the fate of Perez Hilton et al get an inoperable tumor at the base of your spine. He’s rich, you’re not- get over it.
Genetic testing on unborn children is, is not ethical
X17 has one big problem here, and that problem is that their images are not copyrightable in the first place. US courts have held for over a century that copyright only protects the original and creative aspects of a work, and doesn’t extend to protecting the effort (“sweat of the brow”) or luck involved in creating it.
So, unless the photographers actively posed the subject, chose the lighting, camera angles, etc. they have zero “creative expression” to protect. The key is originality and expression, period.
Just pushing the shutter release to capture what the photographer sees at a moment in time doen’t cut it.
This is the “dirty little secret” of copyright law that a lot of people don’t understand. They don’t “own” the image to begin with, since their photographer didn’t “express” or “create” the image. They only “captured” something that would have happened if they weren’t there.
Portraits and “fine art” photography, movie scenes, and staged events are protectable. Candid photographs are not.