Chilling Effects

This is what I got late last night :

From: margaret_langston@timeinc.com
Date: 28 February 2007 06:57:58 PM EST
To: Liza Sabater ...

Subject: Re: DMCA Copyright Notice

Dear Website Proprietor:
I am an attorney for Time Inc., the corporate publisher of People Magazine. This will put you on notice that Time Inc. has concluded an agreement with a photo agency for exclusive rights to publish photographs of Patrick Dempsey and his family (including his newborn twins) in People Magazine and on People.com. These are the only photographs of Mr. Dempsey and his twins now in existence.

In the past your website has posted photographs which have been licensed exclusively to Time Inc. for publication in People Magazine and on People.com, in violation of Time Inc.’s exclusive rights.
This letter is an official notification under the provisions of Section 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that the posting of any photographs of Patrick Dempsey and/or any other members of his family with his newborn twins, would infringe Time Inc.’s rights in North America, Australia and New Zealand.

I have a good faith belief that use of such photographs in the manner set forth herein would not be authorized by of Time Inc., its licensing representatives, or the law. The information provided herein is accurate to the best of my knowledge. I hereby swear under penalty of perjury that I am authorized to act on behalf of Time Inc. for matters pertaining to notification of infringement of its exclusive rights in its copyrighted material.

Very truly yours

Nicholas J. Jollymore
Deputy General Counsel
Time Inc.
nicholas_jollymore@timeinc.com

Here is my response:

I haven't done any business blogging in a long while. Well, I have a reason now : The idiots of Splash News and 6 other agencies are happy slapping themselves on the back for threatening Perez Hilton with a lawsuit for photographs they claim he "stole" from their website.

Perez Hilton is to be hit by a multi-million dollar federal lawsuit from the top seven paparazzi agencies in the US.

Splash News, INF, Ramey, Bauer Griffin, WENN, Most Wanted and Flynet have joined forces to stop Perezhilton.com from using copyrighted images.
"Perez claims he is making a fortune off exploiting pictures taken by photographers. He blatantly violates copyright and makes advertising revenue off other people's works," said Gary Morgan of Splash News.

[...]

The seven agencies have spent the last few weeks conferring over how to stop Hilton. In an unprecedented co-operation between paparazzi and showbusiness agencies, the heads of the agencies agreed to take action.
A letter was sent demanding full payment of all infringed material or face a lawsuit next week.

I honestly do not understand why people in the gossip business hate Perez Hilton (aka Mario Lavandeira) so much. I don't know if it's because he is :

1. A successful blogger
2. A successful gay blogger
3. A successful gay latino blogger

Even if professional gossip bloggers like Mario wanted to register with the Splash News site and check the prices on their photos (which are not posted publicly, by the way), this is what they are hit with: