Go$$ip

The gossip wars have taken an interesting turn with the arrival of Brangelina’s baby Shiloh. Anyone who doesn’t think there’s serious money (and ego) at stake need only look at the battle raging over the first photos that hit the web. Reported Page Six yesterday:

BRAD Pitt and Angelina Jolie got top dollar for the first pictures of baby Shiloh - but they made the weekly celeb glossies work for it. All the weekly magazine editors were summoned to the offices of the Getty photo agency at Canal and Varick late Saturday night. "We were sequestered into separate and un-air-conditioned offices," said one. "The photos were shown to us around 10 p.m. to midnight, and then we had to submit bids by 6 a.m. Sunday morning. No one got any sleep at all, as it was a manic game of phone-tag to top each other's bids. I'm convinced it was Brangie's revenge on the weekly magazines." The pictures went to People for $4.1 million.

But then the cover photo from Hello! was leaked and showed up all over the place. Everyone jumped on and it appears the celeb mags have freaked. Cease and desist letters have landed on the big gossip blogs Perez Hilton and Pink Is the New Blog and likely others, who have pulled the pic from their sites, at least temporarily. I even saw Perez’s version on Toronto’s CTV local newscast last night, complete with his scrawl on the picture. Those lawyers are going to be busy as you can easily find the photo even on the first page of Google images.

What this really shows is that these magazines are worried about their online gossip competitors. They should be – the sites are updated throughout the day and there are no publishing delays. Expect this fight to get nasty

As for me, I’m just illustrating the battle, not cashing in on the photos. Lawyers can send their complaints to the above email.