Blogs & Magazine Photo Rights

Last week, a spat was fought between magazine publishers (who had paid a lot of money for the rights to photos of Brad & Angelina’s baby whatshername) and online bloggers (who put smaller images of the photos on site). Within hours, bloggers were sent cease and desist letters from People Magazine’s lawyers trying to “protect” their clients’ rights. NYT says:

Magazine analysts say the blogs may have actually done the magazine a favor by drumming up even more interest that may translate into higher newsstand sales. But the episode does show that it is no longer business as usual for celebrity magazines, as gossip blogs take on an ever-larger role.

People magazine has been there before — most memorably when it planned to publish the exclusive pictures of Britney Spears’s newborn son, only to see them reproduced prematurely on Web sites — but never with pictures worth so much and illegally posted so widely.

The problem is, that in the conventional sense of copyright – ALL of us bloggers are using photos on our sites illegally. Do we change or does copyright?

In Web Era, Big Money Can’t Buy an Exclusive – New York Times