Online gossip site TMZ.com’s live Web cam, which has taken to streaming videos of celebrities dining at alfresco lunch spots, is starting to provoke some anger.

“I find it abhorrent and an invasion of privacy,” said Richard Irving, co-founder of the Ivy restaurant on Robertson Boulevard in Beverly Hills, a longtime hangout for Hollywood celebrities and the photographers who follow them. “We’ve always had our share of paparazzi but this is much more invasive.”

TMZ photographers recently began camping out for hours near about a dozen restaurants, hitting different ones on different days. The Ivy is a favored spot because it’s easy to film over its low-slung white picket fence and to get good shots of celebrities eating lunch on the patio.

Unlike TMZ’s television show, which typically features 30-second video clips of celebrities coming to and going from restaurants, bars and courthouses, TMZ’s unflinching electronic eye near the restaurants streams live video for hours at a time.

There are state and federal privacy and property laws that can prevent the paparazzi from trespassing or using a telephoto lens to view private property, but the Ivy’s cozy street-side patio makes for easy – and legal – views.

California’s so-called “stalkerazzi” law, first enacted in 1998 and then amended in 2005, is designed to protect mostly celebrities from overly aggressive photographers or fans who crash into stars’ cars or cause their famous prey to injure themselves.

But there has to be injury, or at least intent to harm, before the law can be enforced, said Patricia Mayer, entertainment attorney at Los Angeles-based Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp.

Ivy employees have resorted to re-positioning the restaurant’s large umbrellas along the patio’s perimeter to try to shield guests from TMZ’s video voyeurism.

TMZ executives refused to comment on the company’s paparazzi-like tactics or its relationship with area restaurants.

The Web site wouldn’t set up a permanent Web cam that could be damaged or stolen, so TMZ photographers roam the city day and night capturing celebrities and their entourages at such celebrity-favored eateries as Johnny Rockets on Melrose Avenue, Good Earth in Westwood and Pink’s hot dog stand on La Brea Avenue.

Fame and frankfurters

Some like the attention.