Originally Posted by Darrah

Are we talking about starting a new blog with no money; or do you have the money and it will be clearly obvious just by looking at the site?

If you have no money and starting off like any other new blogger, you can take whatever you want. Just link back and you should be fine for the most part. Perez's problem started with him never linking back & when they emailed him, he emailed back very nasty emails. He ruined it for everyone. X17 would let anyone take the tagged pictures. Now if they find you, you have to take it down. Only take it down when you get the official email.

These agencies know they need bloggers to promote their agencies. They let bloggers take their tagged images while they make their money selling images to the tabloids and television. They provide you with pictures while you provide them with traffic and backlinks.

Only a handful of blogs can now afford to pay for pictures: DListed, Hollywood Tuna, Just Jared, and just a couple more. But bloggers never pay full price for pictures when they can finally afford to pay. They get a blogger special. It's still a fortune but it is at a reduced rate if you're a blogger.

I don't even think X17 and Splash News allow even one picture used because of Perez Hilton. If you link back to them, have the link open a new window because you can't even backspace back into your site and your visitors might not come back.

Best bet would be to link back to the blogs that do pay for pictures. This way they get the backlinks while you can use their non-tagged pictures. If the blog says which agency they got it from, link back to the agency as the source and then say via whatever blog you got them from.