Photographer sues real estate giant for US$81m

No surprises for guessing that this story comes out of the U.S. A Californian photographer, George Gutenberg, has recently filed a lawsuit against Zillow, an online real estate database company that was founded in 2006, alleging copyright violations for use of his images on their site without permission. Zillow, with a reported revenue of US$1 billion in 2017, was created by the founders of Microsoft spin-off Expedia

The lawsuit cites 543 images across 17 listings on Zillow. Gutenberg is seeking a minimum of US$150,000 per infringement, for a total of US$81,450,000 or more. The documents indicate that Zillow scrapes images from Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) rather than using listing data syndicated to them.

Where copyright law is slightly different in its application to Australia, Gutenberg took the additional step of registering his images with the U.S. Copyright Office. As well as this, his terms and conditions are clear with regards to usage, stating that agents have a “limited license to use the photographs for up to one-year purposes of marketing the property.” Furthermore, the license “expressly states that it is not transferrable and prohibits third party use without permission.”

Mathew Higbee of Higbee and Associates issued the following statement to The American Genius:

“Mr. Gutenberg has a robust working relationship with many top real estate agents in southern California and across the nation. Mr. Gutenberg’s clients gladly pay to license his work knowing that Mr. Gutenberg’s high-quality photographs and signature style add significant value to their listings. In addition to real estate listings, Mr. Gutenberg also licenses of his photographs for editorial and commercial use in print and online publications, advertisements, and retail and commercial businesses.

The agents that engage Mr. Gutenberg understand that they are permitted to use his photographs for the limited purpose of promoting their real estate listing, which includes placing the photographs on the MLS. Content placed on the MLS is only available for the life of the listing and is immediately removed when the listing is sold or otherwise taken off the market. Mr. Gutenberg is not aware of any of his real estate clients directly syndicating his photographs to Zillow, nor is Mr. Gutenberg aware of any of his real estate clients exceeding the scope of rights granted in their individual licensing agreements with him.

Rather, it appears that Zillow, owner of the largest real estate website in the world, indiscriminately copies millions of photographs per day off of the MLS in an effort to build what they refer to as their ‘Living Database of All Homes,’ which Zillow has leveraged into multi-billion dollar company. Zillow’s unlawful copying comes at the expense of creators and rights holders such as Mr. Gutenberg who depend on payment of reasonable licensing fees by those who exploit their works.”

Be sure to stay tuned for more updates on this significant copyright case.