Help with Celebrity blogs

I am planning to open a celebrity gossip blog, i currently have writers to write unique posts daily and a domain name + (working on a design).

I was wondering where the big celeb sites get all thier pictures and news because it seems that they always have the latest news and pics up. Has anyone tried opening a celeb gossip blog? and is it worth it for me to go further and launch the site?

thanks alot for your help guys

 

I think, it is not a bad idea. You can find celebrity informations at topmodelgossip.com or top-25.com. Hope to hear about more sites from others.

 

thanks franke1
hopefully others will input =)

 

guess no takers =(

 

There are a few places that license the celebrity images for online publishing.

 

you can use wikipedia to get pics

and most of the pics arent copyrighted

so u can use them freely

 

I run a celebrity blog. I am part of a celebrity photo agency based in Los Angeles. We run the blog mostly as an advertisement of our agency. We have our own photographers and use all our own content. all our content has a prominent watermark on the front of the photo with our sites address. We do on occasion allow these watermarked photos to appear on other blogs. But, we have deals with the blogs because they have asked for permission in advance.

A lot of celebrity bloggers steal content. They steal photos from the magazines and put them on their blogs. Passwords are stolen from some of the celebrity photo agencies or magazines and photos are taken and then traded in various celebrity forums.These also find there way to some of the celebrity blogs.

The celebrity photo agencies are getting fed up seeing their photos plastered all over the web. For one thing some of the photos are exclusive and when they are put on the web a few of the magazines will either not buy the photo or pay less for the photo. This is especially true for the magazines who also purchase photos for their own websites. If a photo is stolen and put on one of the celebrity blogs, the magazine will not buy the photo. This is not really fair to the photographers who took the photos.

There are a couple of lawsuits in the works, possibly one has been served to one of the blogs already. The major celebrity photo agencies in LA are joining forces and are planning to go after a few of the major celebrity bloggers. The reason is that some of these celebrity bloggers are making a lot of money from the stolen photographs.

There has been a report, but I can't verify it, that Perez Hilton is being sued for 7.5 million dollars by one agency because he has been using their photographs without permission.

So, if you want to have a celebrity blog, please read up on the U.S. copyright laws. Do not steal the photos from legitimate sites or magazines. Most of the agencies will license photos to legitimate sites or blogs.

But, buying photographs this way can become very expensive. Photo license fees for website use usually cost somewhere between $50 - $200 per photo and per website for an average everyday photo. Exclusive shots are not usually given out to an internet site. If I had to pay for the photos I use on my blog, I would lose a lot of money considering that our ads are not currently bringing in a large amount of money right now.

 

is it worth it to pay $200 for a pic?

how much income can you project??

 

that was to "phants"

 

thanks for you reply,
i am in the process of getting a design made.
I have also herd perez hilton was being sued but that is because after many requests from the sources of his photos to be taken down he refused to and at many times he had gotten the pictures before the actual company could get it out.

I intend to ask people if i could use their photos and put a "source" link to their site if i use their photos

will this work? as i do not have a budget to pay 50+ for a picture

 

Ask permission before using the photographs, and save those permission emails...
That's all I can say.
Bye

 

Hi,

Here is the info about the Perez lawsuit.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-12-17-perez-hilton_x.htm?csp=34

It should be no problem if you ask and get permission from the source. But, the source cannot be magazines or other websites that have grabbed the photos from legitimate sources. The source must be the photographer or agency who has taken the photo and is the legal copyright holder.

I have seen that many websites actually grab the image from a magazine or a magazine website and then credit the magazine as the source. Or, that a website will grab a photo from another fan website or blog and source the blog. This is not correct. I have even seen bloggers who have grabbed photos from magazines and then put a copyright watermark of their blog on the photo. This is Really Not Correct.

Because of the internet bloggers have become amateur lawyers when it comes to copyright. But, in most cases they don't know how to read the law or they have never looked at it at all. I think a lot of people on the internet feel that they can use anything until they are told they can't. Internet amateur publishers seem to believe in the "Ignorance is Bliss" type of attitude. They will do it until they get caught and then apologize. I personally think this is a bad attitude.

The Perez lawsuit will be very interesting. It will decide if bloggers have the right to take photos.

I know the x17 agency and the owner is not nice. He is a hard-ass shark. He doesn't like to lose and will be using very good lawyers. This is going to cost Perez a lot of money.