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:

Please note that use of our site is restricted unless you are a professional photo editor for a newspaper or magazine.

We do not offer images to fan web sites or personal collectors for legal reasons. Granting of download privileges is contingent upon satisfactory review of your application; it is not immediate nor is it guaranteed.

This is, by the way, the same kind of crap you get at WireImage and other agencies.

All these companies are still functioning on the old business model of focusing solely on print media. Yet they all have websites full of watermarked photographs that get plastered on thousands of sites daily.

So is Mario really the problem? Nope. The problem is that they have a business that did not take into consideration at all the real explosion of blogging that is happening right now.

These companies have business models that are not hip to the times. They're still working on the hope of getting that $1 million for that 1 photograph while wasting terabytes of bandwidth on photographs nobody gets to see because they have them locked down on sites where, unless you are a magazine you can't even look at. And if you are indeed a magazine you have to pay insane amounts of money for the right to post on a blog.

Here's an example picture of George Clooney from Getty Images.

First off, the licensing dependens on where you are going to show it. You are a newspaper in Tokyo? Your fee is different if you are in New York. Online? If the image appears on the front page you get a different price than if it appears deep in the publication. Since once you post on a blog the image stays there forever in the archives, you have to pay a whole different fee.

So this here photo you see of George Clooney would cost me $150 dollars to run only at a maximum width of 300 pixels and only if I posted it once on the site. Oh, and that one post can only get a licence for 2 years. If this blog stays online for over 2 years, that would mean I would have to pay again at the end of the contract.

Do you see the problem?

That's not just the problem with editorial images, mind you. It is worse at Getty for the images they have on their Creative division. Licences can run in the thousands if you want to use it as the logo on your blog banner. Which is why I have been buying my images at iStockphoto.

This is what Robert Scoble had to say about Getty Images:

This is a business that’s seeing radical changes due to folks like Thomas. Thomas is an amateur. He gives his high-res images away for free, or for a low price if you want to use them commercially. He uses the same Canon 5D that other professionals are using. And, his images are often as good or better than the ones the pros are getting.

And Thomas is HARDLY the only photographer out there who is putting pressure on the professionals. Nikon and Canon are selling hundreds of thousands of digital SLRs every year, most of which go to amateurs or semi-pros who aren’t able to get their images onto Getty right now.

Guess what? GettyImages bought iStockPhoto a few months ago. For how much? $50 million.

Of course, Gary Morgan created Splash News as one of those upstarts ready to take on Getty Images. I even wrote about them as the little paparazzi company that could.

It seems though that the notoriety brought to the company by their photos of a drunk Mel Gibson and Britney Spear's hairless crotch has gotten to little Morgan's head ... and made him paranoid. Since Splash News has a blog, they are now indeed competing with Perez Hilton --the little gossip blogger that could.

Do I dare say Splash News is feeling the same heat as Getty Images?

The bottom line is that, combined, companies like Corbis, GettyImages, WireImages and now Splash News have hundreds of thousands if not millions of images they have no use for and that are sitting on their archives with licences hundreds of thousands of bloggers cannot afford.

Isn't it time for these people to get on with the program?

A company that seems poised to become the iStockphoto of celebrity photography is Photorazzi. Take a look at their website packages:

Web 50
$50 Per Month
100 Images
$.50 Per Image

Web 100
$100 Per Month
500 Images
$.20 Per Image

Web 250 $250 Per Month
5,000 Images
$.05 Per Image

Web 500
$500 Per Month
20,000 Images
$.025 Per Image

Web Unlimited
$1000 Per Month
Unlimited
Under A Penny Per Image

Fansite $99 Per Year
All Photos Of 1 Celebrity
Pennies Per Image

I don't know you guys but that looks to me like a good deal.

Here's an idea:

Why not get .... I don't know ... 100 of the top bloggers in the United States to get a nice exclusive deal with Photorazzi? The bloggers get a nice break and Photorazzi gets also advertising and publicity from the bloggers.

Wouldn't it be nice for Splash News to have Photorazzi as a real competitor with a referral traffic that runs in the millions daily? You know, the kind of traffic that would get the people at Photorazzi the money to twist the panties of the lawsuit-happy ninnies into a tight little bunch.

A word of advice to Morganito : Just because there are a lot of commenters out there dissing Perez Hilton, it does not mean bloggers will be enjoying any of your bully tactics.

You take on Mario, you are taking on a whole industry of professional and pro-amateur bloggers that would be more than happy to pay realistic fees for your content.

You want to stick to People Magazine and Vogue? Fine. Then take your content off the web.

The truth though is that bloggers are your new market and by hurting Perez Hilton you are unleashing a chilling effect that will only hurt your company. Money is what you want? Take Perez Hilton to court and we will take our money to your competitor and deprive of your market.

And grock, how I will so love that.

Photorazzi, here I come!