featuring Caplin’s photo of Darren Criss
(Photo credit: Robert Caplin)
Perez Hilton vs. Robert Caplin, a battle over copy-written photographs of Darren Criss.
How to Succeed in Business
Without Really Trying
(Photo credit: The Hollywood Reporter )
On December 30, 2011, Robert Caplin published photos of Darren Criss, an actor starring in the Broadway play “How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” However on January 4, 2012, those same photos appeared on PerezHilton.com as part of a blog entitled, “Feast Your Eyes On The Real Darren Criss.”
According to Phoblographer, Robert Caplin contacted Perez Hilton about the use of his images. At the end of their communication, the article states that Perez Hilton agreed to take down the photos from the website. Caplin waited months for Perez Hilton to remove the photos from the blog. In May 2012, Caplin filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement for the use of his photos.
In the lawsuit, Caplin identifies all of the images used by Hilton on PerezHilton.com. According to Courthouse News Service, Caplin sued Hilton for $150,000 x 14, a total of $2.1 Million.
(Photo Credit: B. Alexander)
A social media professional, Mark Harvey has not dealt with lawsuits filed over copyright infringement. However, Harvey uses a lot of images to promote conversation on social media platforms for clients. Harvey stated “this is sort of eye opener for me… I would not have thought the images infringed copyright since they maintained their original watermarks.”
Hilton added additional watermarks on the original images, which is a part of Caplin’s complaint. Additionally, the photos connected visitors to places where they could shop for looks similar to Darren Criss.
According to the lawsuit, Hilton must have stolen the pictures by using screen capture because the photos used preventative measures to secure them from thieves. Harvey said, “he probably didn’t do that… he could have used the source code for the website to download the pictures.”
When asked about Perez and Caplin, Harvey said, “In my experience, if someone asks you to take something down, you take it down.”
Since the filing of the lawsuits, the images by Caplin are no longer on the website. The current status on the case is not published online. However, this is not the first time Hilton found himself in copyright trouble.
In 2006, X17 sued Perez Hilton over copyright of photographs. The official lawsuit filing found on TMZ.