14 DAY TRIAL // Paris Hilton, although a questionable singer and actress, makes millions of dollars a year off her image alone. No matter how much criticism she gets and despite the occasional bashing in the tabloid media, whatever Paris touches turns to gold, whether it be an endorsement for canned, sparkly wine or a perfume and whatnot. With this in mind, it’s no wonder she’s suing mad when her image is used without authorization, as the Examiner informs.
Apparently, there’s a billboard company in New Zeeland that decided to make things more interesting in terms of advertising for, well, advertising space. Instead of the usual white billboard with just a phone number on it, the company displayed a huge close-up of a paparazzi shot of Paris Hilton, with a huge caption all in caps reading, “Vacant” and, of course, a telephone number.
“It’s probably for this reason that the company decided to shake things up with a billboard bearing Hilton’s image with ‘vacant’ written below in giant white letters. Not only is Paris unhappy about the apparent insult, but she is threatening a lawsuit unless the advertisement is taken down.” the Examiner writes. A spokesperson for Paris has already contacted the agency in question with demands to take the ad down immediately.
The problem is, the other side says, that Paris is totally missing the point. “We wanted to draw some attention to some of our unsold display as we expanded, so we briefed a friend who runs his own boutique agency to work up a range of creative concepts... We were thinking about using Winston Peters, but Paris is much prettier and she has a proven ability to laugh at herself. We assume that the agency has taken care of the rights to the image of Paris, but we will ask the question.” Media5, the agency in question, says in a statement.
As of now, Paris Hilton and her team of lawyers are standing by, waiting for the billboard company to take down the insulting – and illegal – ad. The company, on the other hand, is still waiting for a response on whether it was entitled to use the image in the first place.