Zillow, the online real estate home listing company, was recently ordered to pay $8.3 million for copyright infringement! They were using thousands of images on their website that belonged to a real estate photography and marketing service site called VHT Studios.
VHT holds the copyright for all of the photos taken by the photographers and licenses the photos to real estate listing agents and brokers to market the properties. VHT stated that they discussed with Zillow using their photographs on their website, but Zillow had decided not to use VHT’s photos for Zillow Digs.
In 2015, VHT filed a lawsuit that claimed Zillow’s home improvement, renovation, and design division, Zillow Digs, was using their copyrighted photos without permission. In January 2016, VHT added to the lawsuit that Zillow was also using their photos, but that claim was dismissed by the court later that year. The court awarded the photo company $79,875 in actual damages and $8.24 million in statutory damages!! Wow!!
“We have persistently maintained our belief that this suit was without merit,” Zillow said in a statement provided to GeekWire. “While we are pleased that the majority of original claims were dismissed in this case, we regret that the jury did not find for us completely on those that remained, and will vigorously pursue all options to overturn their verdict. We take copyright protection and enforcement seriously and will continue to respect copyright permissions across our platforms.”
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Written by: Teresa Nguyen