Fair question.  There are bigger problems in the world than celebrities being a little "inconvenienced" by struggling paps who are just trying to make a living.  Right?

Tell that to Prince William and his brother Harry.  Tell that to the mother of Chris Guerra,  the 29 year old who was accidentally hit by a car after pursuing a picture of Justin Bieber. Tell that to the innocent children of celebrities who witness the violence and anger on a daily basis.

People are getting hurt every day.  Some have been killed.  We need to stop this cancer right now.

Some might respond by pointing out the extreme and often reckless behavior of certain celebrities.  They may even argue that some celebrities deserve it.  What about the others?  What about those who are true artists. Actors and musicians who have struggled and have risen through the ranks of a competitive industry. Those who are loving and compassionate people.  Do they too deserve to be mobbed and thrown to the ground?  Do they deserve to be chased at high speeds through a tunnel?

The root of the problem is greed.  That's what we need to defeat. There is a solution.  The answer is generosity.  They cannot take from you what you freely give.

More laws?  Higher gates? Greater private security?

I don't blame you for thinking "This kind of behavior should be illegal.". The paparazzi are getting worse.  People are getting hurt, and in some tragic cases killed.  Something has to be done.

The main problem with reforming the law is that it pits your right to privacy against their first amendment rights.  This battle has been fought for decades in the courts at great financial cost, and with little to show for it.  In the end, freedom of "the press" always seems to trump your right to privacy.

So you end up thinking there is nothing you can do.  You just accept this insane situation.  But you don't have to.  The answer can be found through a combination of technology and generosity.

Please share your thoughts by clicking on the "Comments" link below.

Celebrities have had it.  Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter….the list goes on and on.  They are suffering from social media fatigue.

Then why do they do it?

To the credit of some celebrities, they don’t.  Some just can’t see beyond the self promotional aspect of social media.  You’ll know these celebrities by the fact that they don’t have a social media presence. Any!  Some not even an official homepage.  It's not because they can't afford one.  Unfortunately for them, the appetite for pictures and gossip just continues to grow unabated.

Other celebrities have thought surely at some point people would have had enough of them….and what they eat….and what they wear.  If they just flood social media with all of these images, through all the various channels, then maybe, just maybe, people would leave them alone.  Leave them alone long enough so they could take their kids on a vacation without being mobbed.  Or maybe, in an ideal world, take a trip to the corner store without being sold out to the paparazzi.  Something nearly all of us take for granted.

What has happened instead is that the paparazzi have gotten worse, and the accusations of celebrity narcissism begin to fly.

So someone came up with a bright idea a few years back.  Celebrities need their own Entertainment publication.  One that they themselves would own.  One that THEY would control.  And so one was born (maybe there is even more than one – who can keep up with it all).  The solution to the paparazzi problem must be that.  Right? 

No, the paparazzi problem continues to grow. But why?  It all sounded so promising.

Maybe we are not asking the right questions.

Did you really think that the answer was going to be more copyright?  more lawyers?  more lawsuits?  It rarely ever is.

@papbuster

1) Destroy the value of their photos.
2) Educate your fans that it is wrong to take your photo without your permission.
3) Give publishers (and your fans) a free alternative to the paps.

Destroy the value of paparazzi photos - This can be done quite easily by immediately publishing a similar or better quality photo/video as soon as they take theirs.  If a better photo is freely available for immediate download, theirs is rendered worthless to publishers.  The more generous you are, the more control you gain.

Provide a free alternative -  (what you may be thinking) The paps constantly take mundane, meaningless photos.  I've tried posting them on my Twitter account, but I don't want to subject all my followers to a constant flow of all that.

(answer)  Precisely.  That is why we need a tool like papbuster.com.  A tool that is dedicated to defeating the paparazzi by making a steady stream of free "celebrity approved" photos/videos available.  A stream that you control.  A stream where you show your true emotions, not the ones they provoke.  A central hub that we all own collectively and redistribute the profits to charity.  Where do you think your fans would turn to if they had a choice?  If they truly love and respect you, the answer is obvious.

Educate your fans - This is the easy part, but you still need someone dedicated to the task.

Okay, but where do I "instantly" publish my free pics too? 

papbuster.com

How do I publish it to papbuster.com?

I will provide you with a free account and easy to use technology that will allow you to publish photos or videos directly to papbuster.com.  It's very easy to do.  If you have a cell phone that takes photos/video, and an internet connection, you have everything you need.  

How will publishers/people know they should go to papbuster.com for my free photos?

Together, we will inform them.  The paparazzi will help us inform them too.

Why would I want to promote your brand?

Because it is not my brand.  It will be our brand.  I refuse to let greed get in the way of solving this problem.  I hope you will do the same.  Generosity is the key.

Doesn't constantly publishing my own photos defeat the purpose?  I want privacy!!!

No, because it's not the photos that bother you, it's the lack of control.  It's the dishonesty.  It's the lack of respect. When they're your photos, these things do not apply.  You get to show the truth.

This strategy not only gives YOU the power, it also clearly expresses your motivation.   You're publishing on papbuster.com to defeat the paps - clearly.  You don't have to publish 24/7 either.  Just do it when someone pisses you off and you feel like making their photos worthless. They don't have to be selfie's either, have a friend or a member of your security team take the pictures of you.  How are paps going to compete with that kind of access?  After a bit of practice, your own photos can be on papbuster.com in under a minute.  How are the paps going to compete with that?

How do I get started?

I need to verify who you are.  You don't need to contact me personally.  I would be happy to talk to your friend, agent, any go-between you desire.  I understand that you value your privacy.  As you can imagine, the paparazzi are going to try to undermine my efforts.  Their nightmare is a bunch of free photos of you that are better than theirs.  

Someone with a better shot than theirs.  They want to have an "exclusive" shot.  Something new.  Something controversial.  Something nobody else has.  More than anything they want to capture intense emotion.  A moment of truth.  Don't give it to them.  Don't talk to them.  Don't let them provoke you.  Being enraged only gives them something of value.  Instead, render their photos common, meaningless, and useless by taking the high road and immediately publishing something better yourself.  The more generous you are, the more control you gain.

By working together we can make it better.  Your fans will be educated about appropriate behavior and the paparazzi will eventually learn that there is no longer money in it.

There are a number of reasons.  The main ones are:

1) They believe your image has value - The paparazzi want to sell their pictures.  The more emotion they can evoke from you, the more interesting the photo.  The more interesting the photo, the more value it has.  The more you allow them to provoke you, the more they win.  The solution to this part of the problem is to make their photos worthless by immediately publishing something better.  Let me show you how.

2) They love you - Your fans adore you and want to have a piece of you that is all their own.  The solution to this part of the problem is to educate your fans that taking your picture without your permission is wrong, and you don't like it.  It won't stop every fan from snapping a quick photo, but is that really the problem?

Of course, there are other reasons someone might take your photo.  These are the main two that require a solution right now.

Artists United Against Paparazzi has just introduced a daily news feed to their website to help celebrities keep track of the growing paparazzi problem.

"Celebrities are living this nightmare on a daily basis.  Many of them feel powerless to stop it."  said the director of the organization, who just goes by @papbuster. " I want to provide them with a tool that will keep them informed and give them a degree of control back".

In addition to the news feed, the organization also claims to have the technical means to allow celebrities to quickly publish their own photos and video in order to render paparazzi photos worthless.  All services provided by the organization are available at no cost.

"I don't claim to have all the answers, however I believe this is an important problem to address.  The law isn't protecting public figures, but that doesn't mean there isn't a solution to the paparazzi problem.  We just need to start asking the right questions." The news feed will be updated daily by 12:00 p.m. EST.

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It means that any correspondence does not go beyond me.  

See Privacy Policy Statement for additional policies and details.

Now let's look at the questions we need to answer to solve that paparazzi problem.

Home

The generosity strategy has been proven successful a number of times.  If it works with newborn photos, why wouldn't it work all the time?

All that is missing is a platform that everyone understands is dedicated to defeating paparazzi.

papbuster.com will be that platform. 

(back to the questions)

@papbuster

Cheap cameras? New publishers? Greed?

These are just a few of the reasons that the paparazzi problem has grown tremendously.  There are also others.

The primary reason is greed.  People have realized that there is money to be made by selling photos of celebrities.  You don't require much talent to snap a quick photo, and the pay-off can be enormous.  This has had two effects (i) new people taking up the "profession" of being a paparazzo and (ii) everyday people you encounter trying to cash in using their mobile/cellphone cameras.

Let's face it, how many people carried around a high resolution camera in their pocket just five years ago?  Today, nearly everyone has one built into their phone - and it's growing everyday.

But the problem of greed doesn't end there.  Publishers have discovered that there is an insatiable appetite for celebrity updates.  No longer is the public satisfied waiting to see their favorite celeb in their next film or on the red carpet.  Some want to know what celebrities are doing, wearing, eating, thinking 24/7 (well almost).  But why?

Many publishers feed this need by publishing "entertainment" stories containing salacious gossip and rumor - something that would never have been considered by serious journalists just ten years ago.  What used to be confined to publications like the National Enquirer are now part of main stream media.  The media companies will tell you it is because of the consumer demand, but is it?  Or is it a self perpetuating consumption cycle, with conjecture and speculation as the commodity?

Regardless who is to blame, there is one thing that is certain.  The paparazzi problem will continue to grow if there is a market for celebrity photos.  Lets destroy that market by flooding it.

Don't talk to anyone who approaches you on the street,  Professional paps are now posing as fans.  Fans won't immediately start hitting you with stupid questions.

Instead, I suggest you consider using a carrot and stick approach. Prepare signed and unsigned business cards that contain the following message.

• Unsigned Card:  "Please respect my privacy. #RealFansShowRespect". 
  
• Signed Card:  "Thank you for respecting my privacy, as a token of my appreciation here is an autograph and my personal contact information." 
  

When approached by an intrusive fan give them an unsigned card without speaking to them THEN IMMEDIATELY seek out someone (ideally someone around your age) in the immediate vicinity who is showing respect.  Reward that person by politely engaging them in conversation and providing them with a signed card (if they want it).  You could say something to the effect of "Hi, you may not know or care who I am, but just in case you do,  I would like to give you this (signed card) this as a token of my appreciation for showing respect."

You shouldn't give out more than one signed card per incident because it will devalue the message that is conveyed.

(Note: the contact information you provide can be separate from your everyday contact info. - but keep in mind you can learn a lot from these people and the reward for respect should be legit.)

It may take a while, but eventually people will get the message - especially nowadays with social media.

The best way to destroy a market, is to flood it.  It's simple supply and demand.

You may be surprised at how little it takes to deter the paparazzi from stalking you.

The mere knowledge that publishers have easy access to your up-to-date photos will steer the paparazzi away.  That isn't to suggest that publishing a single posed shot will end your problems.  But don't think you will have to be posting 24/7 either.  Posting your photos to papbuster.com accomplishes three main objectives:

i) It makes their photos worthless - especially unique/high value shots.
ii) It makes your intent (to defeat the paps) clear to everyone - so you can avoid accusations of narcissism.
iii) It has the potential of helping good charitable causes.

What kind of photos should I upload to papbuster.com?

You will want to upload photos that are better than the paps are trying to sell.  That shouldn't be hard.  They should be candid photos or video.  They should have no reference to papbuster.com (save those for the paps). And they should be uploaded promptly after you've been targeted by a pap. These steps will devalue their photos the most.  In the end, it is up to you how many and how often you publish.  There is no minimum or maximum you can publish.

How many photos are we talking about?

It really depends.  A single good photo might be enough, or it might take several different shots.  Obviously publishers don't want to all use the same photo.  That said, having even a single good shot from you dramatically increases publishers negotiating power with paps.  Paps want something that is unique, so the payoff will be great.  You can deny them that. You can make their photos worthless at will.  You can take control.

I realize that you have a lot of additional questions.  They are all answered here.

Return to the full list of Questions.