Following a lawsuit from CoStar (Homes.com’s parent company), Zillow has begun to remove images alleged of copyright infringement from its platform.
Zillow sent out notifications to partners Thursday, Sept. 4 that the images would start being removed within the next couple of days, according to a company spokesperson.
CoStar originally filed the copyright lawsuit against Zillow in July, alleging that Zillow was utilizing at least 47,000 images—mostly for multifamily listings—that were copyrighted by CoStar. CoStar CEO Andy Florance claimed in a statement at the time of filing that Zillow has been “profiting from decades of CoStar Group work and the billions of dollars we have invested,” and the theft was “nothing short of outrageous.”
Speaking to RISMedia today, a Zillow spokesperson characterized the photo removal as “standard procedure” during a copyright infringement/intellectual property use lawsuit, since CoStar is alleging limitations and usage on the images. The lawsuit was the first time Zillow had been informed of the alleged copyright infringement, according to the spokesperson.
CoStar General Counsel Gene Boxer strongly disputed this in a statement shared with RISMedia, claiming that Zillow “knowingly” displayed the images in question—at least some of which were originally uploaded by Zillow customers, according to the lawsuit—and alleged that Zillow was “caught red-handed.”
“This belated scramble also proves that Zillow has always had the power to decide what shows up on its sites. It chose to infringe because it made money doing so,” Boxer said.
CoStar, in its lawsuit, acknowledges that Zillow is likely to “blame its customers” for the images appearing on its platform, but it argues that Zillow negligently allowed them to remain there because the company benefitted financially.
Zillow has not yet responded to CoStar’s allegations in court, but the spokesperson added that Zillow is “not conceding to anything” and still intends to “vigorously defend” itself.
The spokesperson added that the images represent only about a 10th of a percent of all images on its platform, so the effect of the removal will be “very minimal.”
The CoStar filing claimed that Redfin and Realtor.com® used these same images by way of “lucrative syndication agreements,” with the lawsuit referring to these companies as Zillow’s “partners” or “supposed competitors.”
According to the spokesperson, Zillow will be following up to offer customers affected in the image removal with media services in order to get new photos taken for properties that previously utilized images CoStar claims it copyrighted.
“When caught red-handed, some companies issue apologies—but Zillow tries to hide its wrongdoing,” Boxer said. “We look forward to holding Zillow to account for its mass infringement.”
The Zillow spokesperson said the company will file its response to the lawsuit by the end of the month, based on current court deadlines.
