ABOR, TAR, and NAR never took action to any of the many complaint I made regarding brokers missuse of my and other’s photography and they said that my only rememdy would be in the courts.

We had finished depositions, all sumarary judgments had been deigned. Justice Sparks even stated in his brief that I had a good case for infringement. Suddenly at the 11th hour NAR filed a LEAVE for AMICUS BRIEF in support of REDFIN motion for summary judgement on a very specific issue:

They requested that realtor websites be classified as “Service providers” as defined by the DMCA and realtors/brokers be classified as “Users” as defined by the DMCA. In the hearing Justice Spark said that NAR brief had no merit and was a missapplication of the DMCA statute. He even laughed about it. REDFIN doesn’t even have a registered DMCA agent.

These definitions are extremely far from logic and rreason. No broker uses other brokers websites only the broker uses their websites for their own purposes. Unlike services like facebook, youtube which are user content driven websites real estate brokerage websites have 100% control of what and how they display data on their website at all times. It was not a mistake that they reproduced my intellectual property after their license to do so had expired. So even if they had a DMCA agent it would only protect them in the case of a DMCA take down of data a realtor uploaded that they did not have the rights to upload to the MLS. This is the same kind of protection they already have.

So NAR amicus semas like a red herring.

Instead of actually getting any justice I suddenly lost my legal right to my registered creative works and the REDFINs of the world can now use the data in the MLS for whatever purpose with impunity because according to this opinion I have no standing to enforce my rights since I didn’t have a contract with REDFIN?

Had I know that I was giving up my protection of my creations I may have never used the MLS for anything or become a Realtor.

Broker reciprocity does not mean free content forever for better google rankings. It means you can use the data and images within very strictly defined limits for very specific purposes and REDFIN exceed them.

It also must be mentioned when my agents screen captured the images REDFIN didn’t have an Automated Valuation Model (AVM). Even if they had one at that time it cannot be considered a Comparitivame Market Analysis (CMA) which is the only post sale use they have license for. “A specific property for a specific person”

Besides all the other problems with this rulling what about privacy? I know many buyers do not want the interior their home just published forever for anyone to inspect or scoped out by robbers nor do they want there sold prices published for the central apprasail districts in non-disclosure states. It’s just disrespectful.

There is no greater good in stealing from creative professionals for better google rankings.

Alexander Stross