We have no problem with the paparazzi, but there comes a point where a picture is no longer interesting if you've seen one similar a million times. There are a million happenstances of this, but there are the ones that really stood out in our mind.

Sienna Miller Walking Her Dog: As we mentioned, Ms. Miller takes the pooch out for a stroll every day on the streets of New York. We've even seen pics of her picking up his poop. The critter is cute, but we are sick of seeing this. Get Sienna stealing people's husbands instead, she does that about as often. [Images via INF and Bauer-Griffin]

Gosselins at the Bus Stop: Just like Sienna's dog, the Gosselins have to bring the kids to the bus stop just about every day. It's always a hassle with all the children, their backpacks, and the photographers waiting to pounce. We didn't like taking the bus when we were kids, and we don't want to see it anymore now. [Images via INF and Bauer-Griffin]

Marc Jacobs in a Skirt: We love that Marc is a little fashion forward and claiming a piece of clothing for the boys that is usually reserved for the women. However, the skirt in and of itself is no longer news if he wears one everyday. It's like calling out Posh Spice for wearing the same frozen alien expression. We've just come to expect it, so it's not exciting. [Images via Getty and Bauer-Griffin]

Britney Spears in a Bikini: Just like Marc, her choice of attire is no longer shocking or titillating, no matter what the shape of her body is. Because she takes lots of vacations and her boys like to go swimming, we get to see her poolside apparel quite frequently. Let us know when she wears a metallic designer one-piece. At least that would be trend news. [Images via Bauer-Griffin]

Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber Walking the Family: The couple lives in New York and has two young kids. That means lots of time walking and pushing a stroller. For most Manhattanites (and espeically Brooklynites) seeing a pretty lady with a too-big stroller is about as rare of a sighting as seeing a crazy person on the subway. If we wanted to see this, we'd brunch in Park Slope instead of staying in bed on a Sunday morning. [Images via Bauer-Griffin]

Lindsay Lohan Shopping: Lindsay Lohan is unhireable. How does she pass the time? She shops. She'll buy anything (except groceries) and she'll spend hours looking for it. She takes friends, family, girlfriends, anyone. She loves to shop. Yawn. The only transaction of hers we want to see caught on film is when she goes to her dealer. Deliver some footage of that and we'll start paying attention. [Images via Bauer-Griffin]

Flynet Pictures is selling pictures like the one above which shows Momsen in a very short skirt and fishnet stockings sitting on the steps of Metropolitan Museum of Art. In others, however, a diligent pervert can glimpse up her skirt to the red panties she wears underneath.

As Gossip Cop pointed out, several gossip websites are running the pictures, including Hot Celebs Home, Hot Online News, IGossip, and So So Juicy. CelebGossipz (with a Z!), the site that Gossip Cop mentions, has taken the photos down.

So, we're just going to say it. Looking at a 16 year-old's panties is fucked up. Who to blame?

• The Wardrobe Department: We know fashion is a big part of the show, and Momsen's character's life, but didn't anyone figure out the equation of Short Skirt + Sitting on Stairs = Panty Flashing? Isn't it their job to think about these things? Now they made an easy target for...
• The Paparazzi: This is an easy one. They shouldn't be taking pictures of little girls' underwear. But they do cause they can get big money from...
• The Photo Agencies: They shouldn't be buying or selling these. There's nothing illegal about them, but they are just really in poor taste. However, there's a buck to be made thanks to...
• Gossip Websites: Yeah, we ran pictures of what may or may not have been Jennifer Aniston's lady flower, but she is a grown woman with a flower in full bloom. We can be plenty tacky, but there are just some things that are over the line. However, these pictures will do heavy traffic, thanks to...
• All of Us: We know that you clicked on the links above. You're perverts. But so are we, cause we did exactly the same thing when we saw the item on Gossip Cop. It's hard to fight human curiosity. Then we felt bad about looking. Then we had to blame people and drum up some outrage, which will only lead to more curiosity, which will lead to more people clicking on the links. Now we're all trapped in a shame spiral.

There were pap pictures of the Obamas vacationing in Hawaii and transitioning in Chicago, but the mean streets of Capitol Hill have probably never been the scene of a shot sold to People or stolen by Perez. Not because DC and Capitol Hill are off-limits to the paparazzi, but because they're boring. DC pictures don't sell. Why would they? Do you care where Representative Peter DeFazio's LAs are drinking tonight? No. (They're drinking at the Hawk & Dove, btw.)

But, you know, the Obamas are celebrities! And so John McCain's shitty summer 2008 campaign strategy has finally sort of come to pass. Barack Obama is not Paris Hilton, but his wife and kids are Kate + 8.

(Though one imagines Secret Service presence will continue to make these shots something of a rarity.)

Even more fun: when the set initially went up on INF's site, one of the shots was a close-up of the first lady's stomach. BABY BUMP??? (It has since been deleted.)

[Pictures: INFphoto.com]

Since he arrived at Butner, Madoff has only once shown emotion over the impact of his crime, the source said.

"He said that his wife was mad at him because the paparazzi won't leave her alone," the source said, adding Madoff got teary-eyed while making the admission.

You thought Ruth Madoff was just being stuck-up when she got snippy with the Post paps? This stuff really hurts her! Bernie can put up with his new job in the engraving shop and the "fish filet with macaroni and cheese" prison menus. But his poor wife's tears, because of photographers—this is the punishment that will torment his soul.

Also all his victims' despair and whatnot.
[NYP. Pic: Getty]

Sure, we always suspected that Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen were psycho gunslingers, but this seems a bit extreme. Gisele reportedly had an exclusive photo deal with some Brazilian magazine; when the couple's bodyguards caught the two photographers trying to take photos from a neighbor's land, they brought them back to the house, where they were "screamed" at by Brady's friends and bodyguards. When they finally left and drove away, they say, this happened:

As the lensman drove away, Aviles said he spotted one of Brady's men pull a pistol.

Seconds later, a bullet shattered the back of Cortez's SUV, struck a front windshield wiper and then bounced back into the cabin, landing in between the terrified shutterbugs.

"I thought this was going to be my last job," Aviles said.

The fotogs said they found a .38-caliber slug in their SUV's front cabin.

NOT COOL. Yuri Cortez is reportedly a stringer for AFP, and that's really, you know, not generally acceptable. Shooting at news photographers. The bigger issue here: is the magazine world this competitive now, that photo exclusives must be protected with handguns? Shall we expect OK! magazine to hire Blackwater in the near future? Or have they already?

Given that Tom Brady plays for Boston, this was probably inevitable. [NYP, INF Daily. Pic, by Yuri Cortez of the AFP, via Getty]

Adding new details to an earlier Post item, \Justin Rocket Silverman blogs that he was outside a party for Charlotte Ronson at the Eldridge when he saw Lohan girlfriend Samantha Ronson storm out, "a scowl on her face." Lindsay soon followed, chasing after Ronson. Silverman soon followed, notebook in hand, following the fighting couple. By just "a few steps."

At one point Samantha stopped in the middle of Houston Street and said something in a whisper.

"What are you talking about?" shrieked Lindsay in response, "I've been with you all night!"

The couple disappeared into the Bowery Hotel, and Silverman did some reflecting.

As I strolled away, I was struck by two things. First- how painful it must be to have a lover [Ronson] who is so much older, and probably more emotionally mature, toy with your heart and mind.

Second- how identical Lindsay Lohan's screams sounded to the drunken female cries I hear every night outside my East Village window.

As we read Silverman's Post post, we were struck by two things. First, how painful (yet denial-piercing) it must be to have an intrepid reporter document one's inaugural Valentine's Day blow-out fight.

Second, why was a pin-up like Silverman working on the gossip beat on Valentine's? Still single, apparently. Sigh. We did our best, Rocketman.

This occurred to us after a top lawyer at TMZ's owner sent out an all-caps email screaming about the online tabloid's exclusive rights to photos of Nadya Suleman's distended octuplet-carrying belly.

Until now, we hadn't run said pics. Uh, WTF? So we called up the nice folks at TMZ and asked them what was going on. They say a photo agency called Polaris Images had been selling the Octo-mom pictures, even though TMZ had an exclusive license.

The unconfirmed scuttlebutt is that Suleman's own publicist may have given the photo to Polaris. To what end? Generating more publicity for her widely hated client? The motive isn't clear (if that's even how it happened). Peter Bolioli, Polaris's general manager for news, did not return a phone call, but a TMZ representative said Polaris stopped selling the photo after the site's request.

What's even odder: TMZ generally doesn't charge money to license its pictures to other sites; it just asks for credit and a link, in exchange for the publicity. (We get emails from TMZ all the time promoting stories in this fashion.) So what you have here seems to be a lawyer sending out an ANGRY, ANGRY email to enforce TMZ's rights to give away photos. Don't you love the Internet?

NOTICE OF TMZ'S EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO NADYA SULEMAN'S PREGNANCY PHOTOS

THIS IS TO ADVISE YOU THAT TMZ IS THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OF TWO PHOTOGRAPHS OF NADYA SULEMAN (THE "PHOTOGRAPHS") ATTACHED HERETO AS EXHIBIT "A" THAT TMZ FEATURED ON ITS WEBSITE AT www.tmz.com/2009/02/12/octomom-it-was-a-very-goodyear. IT HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO OUR ATTENTION THAT A THIRD PARTY HAS BEEN WRONGFULLY DISTRIBUTING THE PHOTOS WITHOUT TMZ'S CONSENT.

ANY TELEVISION BROADCAST OR INTERNET USE OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS RECEIVED FROM PARTIES OTHER THAN TMZ WILL BE CONSIDERED AN INFRINGEMENT AND VIOLATION OF TMZ'S VALUABLE EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS AND WILL EXPOSE THE INFRINGER TO SUBSTANTIAL MONETARY DAMAGES.

WITHOUT TMZ'S LICENSE OR PERMISSION, YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO USE ANY PORTIONS OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS ON TELEVISION, IN ANY PRINT MEDIA, ON THE INTERNET, OR OTHER ONLINE SERVICE OR INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA TRANSMISSION, OR IN ANY OTHER MEDIUM.

________________________________

David J. Decker
EVP, Business & Legal Affairs
Telepictures Productions Inc.

(Exclusive photo exclusively via TMZ.com, exclusively)

The site, as described by BusinessWeek, appears to operate as a defacto blackmail racket: Your "friends" submit "hilarious" pictures of you, often filched from Facebook. If you are in a picture and want it removed, you have to become a member of the site, which costs $20 per month or $50 per year.

Best part: Your "friend" earns a kickback of $10 or $20 if his picture causes you to pay the membership fee.

It's not really worth fighting in court. A violation-of-privacy lawsuit would be prohibitively expensive. And if you're in the picture, you probably didn't take the picture, so you can't make a copyright claim (without lying, which will bring you major fines if caught).

Better to accept the inevitable: Celebrity has been so devalued and democratized that we all have to learn to play the PR games of famous people. That means flooding the market with flattering pictures and blog posts (the equivalent of magazine puff pieces); bullying hostile bloggers and scandal websites (as celebrity flacks do with tabloids and other disfavored publications); and paying the occasional bribe, in the form of anything from flirting to a free lunch to cold, hard cash (like when Michael Phelps reportedly tried to buy those bong pictures).

Ciccone's tell-all memoir about life with his sister, as excepted in (ha!) the Mail On Sunday, details their many fights over interior decoration. After arguing with Madonna and her husband over the smallest details in a renovation of Diane Keaton's old house in Beverly Hills (Guy keeps calling his choices "twee"), Ciccone is asked to redecorate a new house in three month flat. He feels put upon, but needs the money, and soon a fight is raging by email and fax, and the singer starts withholding money.

'Madonna wants me to tell you that she doesn't feel you did enough to warrant the final payment. So she isn't going to pay it,' she says...
'You tell Madonna that if she wants to see any of the rest of the furniture I bought for her and for which she's waiting, she had better pay me.'
...At the end of October 2003, she decides to return one of the light fixtures I've purchased for her. Caresse takes it back to the shop and learns that I have charged a percentage above the cost - the standard mark-up every designer takes.

On October 24, Madonna calls me and says that she can't believe I've done this to her, calling me a thief, a liar, the most untrustworthy person she's ever met and accusing me of betraying her. The accusation that hurts the most is when she yells: 'I've made you what you are. You wouldn't be anything without me.'

...[In] a fax... she hurls further accusations at me, ending: 'Please never contact me again.'

In another case, Madonna purportedly screws Ciccone over to the tune of $64,000 by authorizing the purchase of items at auction, and then insisting she won't pay for them.

As she is well aware, Sotheby’s policy is that if paintings bought in auction are returned, they will re-auction them but will retain half the proceeds. But, for her own reasons, Madonna is pretending that she doesn’t know that.
I feel as if I am going to throw up. ‘But, Madonna, I’ve spent my own money on them. I don’t make the kind of money you make. I can’t just drop $64,000. That’s all the money I have.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘But you can’t not care.’

‘Sell them to somebody else. If they are worth that much money, sell them to somebody. I don’t care what you do. I don’t want the paintings.’

She gets up and sweeps out of the room, leaving me standing there, clutching an invoice for $64,000 and three paintings, and feeling as though she has punched me in the stomach.

It sounds like the singer eventually made another designer feel "punched... in the stomach" too!

Either way, criminal charges may be forthcoming for Garrett, whose fierce right jab concludes with the most satisfying crunch you'll hear this side of your lunch hour. We can't say the same for Garrett's shrill, "Come on" supposedly meant to entice his aggressor into actual fisticuffs, but that's what the break between rounds is for, we guess. Expect his famous, full-throated baritone to mutter much more insistently when the fight resumes next spring on a red carpet to be determined.

• Brad Garrett Attacks Again, Possibly Provoked [TMZ]

The hardest job in the world next to blogging – and nearly as well-thought of – is following celebrities around with a camera and snapping their every move.

But filing a lawsuit and dragging this guy through a lengthy legal process doesn't sound like much of a solution. We recommend Sienna take up the following prescription from our favorite fanfiction site, AdultFanfiction.Net. The following encounter by user 'Achtung Baby' suggests one possible solution to the pap problem, and features a fictionalized, gun-wielding version in a woodland setting of Eliza Dushku:

The gun fired with a loud pop and an orange dart shot out directly into the deer's jugular vein. The deer collapsed unconscious. Eliza walked up to it and checked its pulse, then nodded. She whistled, and all three of her male companions stood up and came out of the blind. They moved forward and surrounded the deer. Clarke was holding a roll of duct tape and Nate a large plastic garbage bag. Eliza drew a curved knife from her belt and slit the animal's throat, finishing it off with one clean cut. Damn, Gary thought as he watched Clarke and Brad start to push together and tape up its legs. This is great!

Eliza was stepping back now, putting away her weapon while the men turned over and bagged the dead buck. Gary took a shot of the dead animal, then another of Eliza and her knife. He then moved to the side, hoping for a better angle for his next frame.

SNAP.

Gary cursed as he stepped on a loud twig. Instantly Eliza's gun came out, up, and fired. The dart hit Gary right in the chest before he could react. He let out a yell of pain and fell, barely keeping hold of his camera as he tumbled out of the bushes and halfway down the hill. "Shit!" Nate shouted, dropping the freshly bagged deer.

"Oh my God," gasped Brad. "Eliza, what did you-?"

"It's okay!" his girlfriend snapped, lowering her pistol. "He was watching us in the parking lot earlier. I think I've seen him before. He's a paparazzo."

Remind me not to follow around — or blog about — Eliza Dushku, OK?

Levin dismisses legal efforts to restrict the movement of the paparazzi as ineffective and difficult to police given how much photogs can make from the photos. He sees a different model emerging:

"Almost all of them want it," he said of the celebrities who show up on TMZ and in other parts of the peepshow media. The real issue, he added, is how those involved can make a buck. “You’ve got to understand, this is a business,” Mr. Levin said. “How do you make money off of a business?”

Only the day before, the rapper Snoop Dogg had proposed more or less the same thing, but from a celebrity point of view. Speaking for a TMZ camera, he advised Mr. Levin to pay up if he intended to keep using the performer’s face on a billboard advertising the Web site.

“You know my slogan, ‘Break bread or fake dead,’” Snoop Dogg said.

For those slow on the uptake, a sidekick translated: “Harvey Levin, send the check."

That's another golden principle the site can add to its Cider House Rules.

TMZ' Principles [Gawker]

Elterman snapped the two getting into the car, and the pic ended up on a full page in Creem magazine. Elterman, who's photographed stars like Bob Dylan, Joan Jett, and Matt Dillon (see some here) says, "Photographers today just do not know what it is like to make a photograph of a real icon. The stars who the magazines run today are totally boring to me."

Elterman continues:

"I came from a family of art collectors and I have always been active in the arts. It dawned on me one day that if you knew your craft was a photographer, you could make a beautiful iconic photograph that would be published in the magazines and could eventually hang in a gallery or at MoMA in New York. There is nothing different from what were are doing today compared with the work of Walker Evans or Helen Levitt. The concept of Paparazzi As An Art Form has been accepted, and we did our first gallery exhibition early this year at the Seyhoun Gallery on Melrose Ave. The response from the public and the media was overwhelming."

Although we don't use Buzz Foto, we often come across "paparazzi" images that are like artwork, with echoes of Hopper, Lichtenstein (yesterday's Snap of Kate Moss), Seurat, Kubrick, and others, including Ms. Levitt (see Naomi Watts, below). We've compiled some of these arty Snap Judgments into a gallery, here:

Brad Elterman: Elevating Paparazzi To An Artform [Mediabistro]
Brad Elterman: Then and Now [A Photography Blog]
Brad Elterman.com
BuzzFoto.com
Related: "Paparazzi As An Art Form" exhibit information

Earlier: Lindsay & Sam: Got Any Fries To Go With Those Shakes?
A Scene From Sam Ronson's REM Cycle
Saint Angelina, Brad & The Twins Hit Cannes
Mary Kate Olsen Gives Chauffeured Shade
Don't Rain On Serena & Dan's (Art) Parade
Madonna: The Material Girl Is In Her Element
Seth Rogen Makes Naomi Watts Want To Hurl
House Elf Seen Sneaking Into Posh Hotel
Jennifer Garner Updates Famous Seurat Painting For Paparazzi
Chelsea Clinton At Starbucks: We Have Soooooo Been There
Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes: The Visual Metaphors Say It All
Redskins Cheerleader Arrives In Iraq, Promptly Tosses Hair
Kate Moss: Between A Rocker & A Drag Queen

Brad and Angelina photo above via Henry Flores/BuzzFoto.com

"There is no sex tape," Adnan tells Star exclusively, "and I've never claimed there is one."

Adnan says he's prepared to take legal action over the false claims attributed to him. The original story quoted Adnan talking about his intention to sell a two-hour tape he made with Britney in Mexico last January. The tape was said to show a naked Britney writhing around on a bed wearing just her famous pink wig.

"I don't know where these quotes I'm supposed to have said have come from," says Adnan. "What I do know is they certainly didn't come from me and they are completely false. I'm extremely upset and distressed and I'm taking legal action... This story has caused a lot of hurt to my family and people close to me."

"There is no sex tape," he continues. "That is the end of the matter."

Silly Adnan, there will never be any end to this matter. The Britney Spears sex tape story is one that will live on to the end of time, with sightings scattered from the wilds of the Midwest to the bustling street scene of Tokyo, each a hoaxer with a grainy mini-DV camera, a pink wig, and a whole lot of dreams.

[Photo Credit: WENN]

• Exclusive: Britney's Ex: "There's No Sex Tape" [Star]

Jossip has the goods on the ex-Us staffer, Jill Ishkanian, who had left the magazine (which she then sued) to start a paparazzi agency called Sunset Photo & News (where she was embezzled from).

So how did the industry veteran just happen to be driving near the actress one night this week?

Because, according to one conspiracy theory, Ishkanian was purposefully following her with an agenda in mind.

You'll recall that back when Ishkanian (pictured) was running Sunset Photo, a certain lady named Denise Richards just happened to appear in a number of the agency's shots that were then sold to the tabloids. A on-looker might surmise that Sunset Photo and Richards has a special relationship going on, which benefited them both: Sunset got to profit from photo sales, and Richards got to dictate how she came across in the press (read: good). That was especially important, because the entertainment press was inexplicably obsessed with Richard's then-beau, Richie Sambora, who is Locklear's ex-husband and father to her daughter — and plenty of outlets were interested in painting Richards as the villain in the feud between she and Locklear. [Ed: This story was soooo boring, we didn't even pay attention a the time.]

All this might have led some, like TMZ, to conclude Ishkanian (a Richards ally) tailed Locklear, phoned in a false report of erratic driving to get her arrested, which meant she would have the first pictures of the incident, and another favor paid to Richards, who's still keen on seeing Locklear fall.

We asked Ishkanian to comment on the matter, and she told us "I'm not getting into a pissing match with [TMZ head] Harvey Levin who has all his facts wrong" and instructed us to check with the police investigating the matter, or her attorney. "I'm willing to go through yet another controversy if it means that I saved the life of Heather Locklear, or some other person down the road that may have been affected by her condition behind the wheel. A condition that was not determined by myself, but by 3 CHP officers. The toxicology reports should be very telling indeed."

It appears that the long-awaited Melrose Place revival is now playing out in real life! Was Locklear drugged by Richards? Will Ishkanian rip off her wig and plot to blow up Malibu Colony? Will Lisa Rinna join the saga just as it starts to feel played out? Developing!

• Heather 911 Caller Up to No Good [TMZ]
• The Curious Case of Heather Locklear's Paparazzi-Ready DUI Arrest [Jossip]