Paparazzi's competitors: people with cellphones!

The rise of camera phone users as on-scene photographers and replacement paparazzi is happening. That's right, people with last generation camera phones have now the technology to potentially capture "juicy" moments anytime, anywhere such as the latest Britney Spears haircut madness.

While people were only using these technologies to take innocent fan pictures, the paparazzi's business model was safe. But now, times are changing and the ubiquity of camera phones and the way they simplify distribution of such images, is creating the new wave of citizen paparazzi, that are only after their "cut" on this industry.

One could argue that this isn't a bad thing (to end the paparazzi era and give the celebs some rest), but the rise in citizen paparazzi just leads to a decline in the privacy of celebrities and everybody else. In fact, as long as "news" agencies are paying quite huge sums for some of these photos, there will always be people interested in providing this kind of "journalism".

Source: Techdirt
Image: Engadget