Yesterday, I found a snotty little Email in my inbox from a London based talent agency, Splitting Images(which is a name ripped-off from a popular UK TV show, btw). This company is the talent agency for a large number of small-time UK actors who impersonate famous public figures such as actors, celebrities and politicians. Strangely, while this business rips off the public likeness of celebrities for profit by using lookalike actors, it feels that it's actors are immune to critical review. A Michael Fine from Splitting Images either demanded payment from me or the removal of the photos of actors under contract from Splitting Images. This is an outrageous demand.

Of all the movie, book, DVD, Cd, or entertainment reviews that I've done, never once have any of the reviewed subjects ever once demanded some payment for the free promotion or review of their products. And despite the fact that it's pretty obvious that on the Wizbang network, more than 35 million hits have been recorded by the website meter, which is pretty darn nice free publicity, promotion and advertising for any reviewed product, Splitting Images somehow feels that they are special and entitled to special fees from me to write a critical review of their performers. Absolutely ridiculous.

It's also pretty obvious that many of their performers are used in commercials, TV or movies as a joke or for humor value. Yet, folks like Michael Fine seem to take themselves way too seriously and not be in on the joke. His absurd demand Email to either remove the entertainer review photos or else pay Splitting Images money is total crap. Fair use allows a product under critical review to have an illustration photo of some type.

Splitting Images in the UK also doesn't seem to have a clue that American law gives wider constitutional protections to comedy as well "fair use" gives writers some leeway to use images when they write critical reviews of products or entertainment if no other image exists. My celebrity lookalike pieces were pretty funny with a lot of humor as well as a critical review of the performance of the entertainers. If the entertainers were good, I noted it. That's darn good publicity for those entertainers. But in other cases, where the impersonation performance just wasn't very good, I joked about it in my review that was wide open to public comment. Splitting Images or the entertainers certainly had the right to post a comment, yet none did.

Today, I would have just loved to write a funny piece about one of Splitting Images entertainers who they send out to portray Tiger Woods. He doesn't very much look like Tiger Woods to me, personally. And he has a hint of a mustache. Who ever knew that Tiger Woods had a mustache? Just sending some kid out as "Tiger Woods" with a faint mustache doesn't really impress me very much. It's nonsense. It deserves a bad critical review.

In other cases, Splitting Images sends out some pretty convincing impersonators such as UK actor Max Frudd who does a really good Ringo Starr impression. Frudd has a funny name, but his Ringo look is dead-on. However, whether or not he can sing or play drums as good as Ringo isn't noted on the Splitting Images site. Do their entertainers mere just look a little like the celebrities? Or, can they actually perform? That's a big question for me that remains unanswered.

I hope the good entertainers from Splitting Images get more work as a result of my reviews. And as far as the dispute that I'm having with the Splitting Images agency, I haven't yet heard back as a result of my Email responses to them. Splitting Images entertainers got plenty of free good publicity as a result of the Progressive Values and Wizbang Pop pieces. Critics and reviewers can't be forced to pay royalties to some company like Splitting Images just to do a critical review of their entertainers. That was an outrageous request on their part.

Splitting Images makes me pretty angry. Entertainment reviewers like myself who write reviews should not be forced to pay to write product or entertainment reviews. I don't know where this thing is headed. But I'll write the editor of Wizbang Pop and follow his directions on the matter. I promise to update as this story progresses, but it seems like it's always the small time operations like Splitting Images which are always the biggest pain in the ass it seems.