
"What Universal is doing by taking on Perez is the same thing we're doing, and the same thing other content providers large and small will start doing against Perez and others who publish content without licensing it," X17 vice president Kelly Davis tells Radar. The X17 case against Lavandeira is progressing, but no firm court date is set.
For its part, Universal claims Lavandeira, 28, published stolen material owned by the studio meant to go nowhere but the cutting room floor. One can only assume the shot drew millions of hits to Lavandeira's celebrity blog. The same day the suit was reported, Lavandeira posted a claim that his Web traffic had reached 4.75 million unique visitors in a 24-hour period.
The Universal complaint, The Smoking Gun reports, seeks to stop any further distribution of the picture and asks a judge to issue an order "directing the U.S. Marshall to seize" the stolen goods back from the blogger. The whole document is here.
In addition to the multimillion dollar X17 suit, Lavandeira has endured empty threats and a videotaped faux-subpoena service from the paparazzi. But Aniston, 39, has a track record of following through with her threats against celeb-hunters. Though the documents have since been sealed, she sued a long-lensed shooter for invasion of privacy in December when he allegedly caught her sunbathing topless from more than a mile away.
The skintimate shot from the The Breakup, as those who've seen it will attest, was taken at much closer range.
Lavendeira did not return requests for comment.
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