Costar claims that Zillow systematically used copyrighted photos


Real estate player co-starsParents at Homes.com and Apartments.com are suing Zillow, claiming that the online real estate market is using tens of thousands of copyrighted photos to support the business.

In court documents filed this week in the Southern District of New York, Costar said it was trying to remedy the widespread and systematic infringement of Zillow’s Costar copyrighted photographs.

Costar claimed on June 30 that Zillow was exhibited on Zillow.com and other Zillow sites from co-equipped images of nearly 47,000 people, making a profit.

Real Estate Company Compass sues Zillow over consumer choice ‘

Zillow List Page

Zillow website for laptops located in Germantown, New York on Tuesday, July 25th, 2023. (Gabby Jones via Getty Images/Gabby Jones/Bloomberg)

Often, the lawsuit shows images appearing on multiple different Zillow pages and on different versions of the list, appearing more than 250,000 times.

“Zillow’s fraud is not limited to the Zillow family’s website. Through profitable syndication agreements, Zillow distributes Costar images to a partnership network of Zillow’s expected competitors, Realtor.com and Redfin’s hosted listing websites.

Costar said it had invested billions of dollars to create the “most comprehensive database of real estate information,” which includes building the world’s largest library. real estate photos. ”

The company said CoStar Group has hired and employed thousands of professional photographers who have created millions of real estate images owned and copyrighted and protected by copyright.

Fox Business reached out to Zillow for comments.

Zillow app on the phone with someone's hand

The Zillow app is located on a smartphone in Germantown, New York on Tuesday, July 25th, 2023. (Gabby Jones/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

Real estate giant cracks down on exclusive “out of market” household lists on key shifts for buyers

This adds installation Legal issues That Zillow is facing. This is the second time Zillow has been sued within five weeks. The first came from a real estate brokerage compass that filed a 60-page complaint in Manhattan federal court. This claims Zillow inappropriately refusing to list homes where they were originally listed elsewhere.

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The Manhattan-based Compass is forcing a injunction against Zillow to enforce practices as well as financial damages.

Zillow Website

This photo illustration shows the Zillow website reflected in the Zillow app logo in Washington, DC on February 15, 2023. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)

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Seattle-based Zillow has around 160 million homes in its database, receiving 227 million unique visitors a month, and 2.4 billion visits between January and March. They called the compass a “bassed” claim and told Fox Business that they “protect fiercely against them.”

Pilar Arias from Fox Business contributed to this report.

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