Skip to content
News
Link copied to clipboard

Whatever

I talked to a journalism class at Temple last week about electronic information-gathering, and asked about their blog-reading habits. I was impressed by how many said they don't have time to read blogs (It was as if I had asked for a show of hands, "Who reads porn?")

Yet most acknowledged a more-than-passing familiarity with Perez Hilton, the bold-faced blogger born Mario Lavandeira, who crows about running "Hollywood's Most Hated Web Site!"

This comes to mind because the celebrity juicer made the news on Friday instead of merely profiting from it.

Which raises the question: How often do you see a screaming match with the paparazzi and find yourself rooting for the photographer?

The back story: Lavandeira was slapped with a civil suit in a California federal court last week, blamed by a Hollywood photo agency of copyright infringement. The X17 agency is asking for $7.5 million in damages. A New York Daily News article reported that seven other Tinseltown agencies have threatened suit.

The agency contends Lavandeira posted its images on his site without asking for permission - it cites a recent example where four photos its photographers shot of Jessica Simpson shopping turned up on his blog. And of Heather Locklear leaving a lunch engagement. And of Kevin Federline sporting cornrows, etc...

"Mr. Lavandeira has regularly infringed of X17's large scoops," the agency said by press statement. "While it usually takes weeks of effort by a team of photographers and reporters to break a story, for Mr. Lavandeira, it has been as simple as a right-click." X17's vice president said sales to celebrity mags are down because clients don't want to pay for exclusive photos that have already been exposed on the blog.

The blogger known as Perez Hilton responded: "I look forward to defending myself and my right to freedoms under the law vigorously. All successful people get sued."

Successful he is. After a little down time, Perez Hilton was back up Friday, posting photos of support and the eye-opening claim that 4.4 million people visited his site the day before. For comparison, Blinq could claim that many visitors - but it would take four years.

The self-styled "Queen of All Media" types from an L.A. coffee shop. He's claimed to not have Internet access or a TV at home. Yet he's about to command as much as $16,000 a week in ad revenue using Blogads. His finances could change if these suits have legs.

Citizen Mom bemoaned the site's legal problems - it's the source of her daily 5 p.m. gossip fix, she confessed. She linked a Duncan Riley post from this spring that asserted that:

Celebrity blogging is already at the point where its bigger than political blogging. Don't believe me? check out the blogs available to advertise on at BlogAds. Look at some of the traffic. I once wrote about the demise of the geek bloggers, well the political bloggers are next on the list, because mass audiences like this sort of stuff, and as blogging becomes more and more a part of the mainstream, the tastes of its readers are reflected in the sites they read, and whether we like it or not, celebrity gawking is fodder for the mass market of worker bees seeking an escape from the drudgery of their 9 to 5 jobs.

Yes, there is something to say about how a picture of, say Paris Hilton, will draw tons more traffic than that of nearly anything else. We want fantasy and a little diversion from the messy screaming matches we can find closer to home. But let's not get too sociological. Let's just read Perez's snippy email war to a Playboy publicist. Juicy.

(Photo by the Associated Press)

Sally Swift
Posted 12/03/2006 05:32:40 PM
Um. Dan says, "Lavandeira was slapped with a civil suit in a California federal court last week, blamed by a Hollywood photo agency of copyright infringement. The X17 agency are asking for $7.5 in damages." 

If only. $7 and 50 cents is more than all these idiotic my-porn-or-your-porn lawsuits are worth put together. 
daniel rubin
Posted 12/03/2006 05:38:34 PM
Uh, yes. Million. 
marty
Posted 12/03/2006 06:55:30 PM
If you actually read his site on a regular basis you would realize that he is pretty funny.  X17 is garbage...their photogs are aggressive.  

He gets 4.4 million hits a day because his site is entertaining...x17 is trying to make some easy ca$h.
Citizen Mom
Posted 12/03/2006 09:03:01 PM
Thanks for the link, Dan. 
I love that Perez Hilton names names and has sort of taken it upon himself to say what the celebrity mags etc. can't or won't say. Complete guilty pleasure.

Will Teullive
Posted 12/03/2006 10:24:21 PM
"Celebrity blogging is already at the point where its bigger than political blogging" 

As much as I wish that statement were true, I don't know if holds up.

I guess it depends on how "bigger" is defined. If you look at the top ten "uniquely linked to" blogs on Technorati they are still dominated by two categories: Geek and Politics, and two Asian blogs I can't make out, but I'm betting geek or politics.

The highest ranked celebrity blog is TMZ at 16th. Perez Hilton ranks 49th. Respectable numbers for sure, but I don't think Arianna Huffington is losing sleep just yet.
daniel rubin
Posted 12/04/2006 07:31:19 AM
blogads is defining bigger based on readership, not links, of course. if we're talking influence, technorati's measure is better, i think. but if it's popularity, page views is a pretty good standard.
pink flower
Posted 12/04/2006 09:37:26 AM
The only time these 2 worthless idiots should be in the news is if the are dead. 
HughE2030
Posted 12/04/2006 03:46:37 PM
The thing I hate about Perez is he steals photos from working photographers. Whether you call us paparazzi'a or whatever, I call him theft and the kind of nasty gossip reporter that ends up injured and deserves it. Two years ago when Perez started out, he did pay for his shots, but somewhere along the line he got greedy and self serving.  I would love to know what "freedom" he is talking about that allows him to steal other peoples work. As for X17, why they don't have a security against "right clicking" a photo boggles my mind. And as far as hating the paparazzi, how can you deny the market which is usually women buying the magazines. Now if it was shots of sports figures dancing with bodacious babes all the time, maybe guys wouldn't bad mouth us so much. (BTW I use only my own shots, I am not a snarky commentator, and I don't jump out of bushes)  
Confessions of A Celebrity Stalker ETC.
http://hughe2030.blogspot.com/