Paparazzi Agencies Team Up to Sue Perez Hilton

Posted on November 30, 2006

TMZ.com reports that Perez Hilton (real name Mario Lavandeira) is being sued for $7.5 million by a photo agency.

The tabloid agency is seeking over $7.5 million dollars in damages from Perez for what they say is a loss of profits and injury to their reputation. The photo agency believes their pics have played a large part in the success and profitability of perezhilton.com, which reportedly charges between $9,000 and $16,000 a week for ad space. It costs plenty to appear next to Britney's crotch!
Perez tells TMZ, "I have yet to be personally served with this lawsuit. My lawyers and I will address the situation when we have the opportunity to review the materials."

It turns out the lawsuit that is about to be filed is from multiple photo agencies who have joined together to sue Perez. You can read more about the lawsuit here on Splash's website. Splash is one of seven photo agencies suing Perez.

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.
"It is time he is held accountable for his actions. We have amassed a ton of evidence from all of these agencies detailing his infringements. We have filed a letter to him giving him the chance to either pay up for all of his copyright violations or face the music. He only has a few days to decide."

A couple weeks ago Perez Hilton being was served with a cease-and-desist order and the video of the incident wound up on YouTube. The video was removed from YouTube but it can still be seen here. The photo agencies are definitely starting to crack down on unauthorized use of photographs and they are targeting Perez Hilton who they believe is a serial copyright violater.