Fortune | FORTUNE 前天 23:29
Zillow is the target of a massive infringement lawsuit that could force it to pay north of $1 billion in damages
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Homes.com的母公司CoStar集团正在起诉Zillow,指控其在其网站上非法使用了超过46,000张受版权保护的照片,可能索赔超过10亿美元。CoStar声称Zillow利用其投入巨资拍摄的房产照片,尤其是在租赁房源方面,以提升自身市场地位。此举不仅针对Zillow,CoStar CEO还警告Realtor.com和Redfin可能面临类似诉讼。CoStar过往曾成功通过版权诉讼获得巨额赔偿,此次诉讼显示了其保护知识产权的决心。

📸 CoStar集团起诉Zillow侵犯版权,指控Zillow在其网站上非法使用了近47,000张CoStar拥有版权的照片,并要求获得巨额损害赔偿,金额可能超过10亿美元。这表明了CoStar在保护其知识产权方面的强硬态度。

🏢 CoStar集团投入了数十亿美元和数十年的时间,雇佣专业摄影师拍摄了大量住宅和商业地产的照片,这些照片均已在美国版权局注册并带有水印。Zillow被指控在未支付许可费用或获得授权的情况下使用这些照片,尤其是在租赁房源信息中,这些照片的出现次数可能超过25万次。

⚖️ CoStar CEO Andy Florance表示,Zillow的行为是“令人愤慨的盗窃”,Zillow正在从CoStar数十年的辛勤工作和巨额投资中获利。CoStar致力于阻止这种系统性的侵权行为,并追究侵权者的责任。CoStar曾于2019年因类似案件赢得过5亿美元的判决。

🌐 除了Zillow,诉讼还指控Zillow通过分发协议将这些侵权照片提供给Realtor.com和Redfin。尽管后两者目前未被纳入诉讼,但CoStar已明确表示,如果它们不立即移除侵权图片,也将采取法律行动。

    The owner of Homes.com is suing Zillow for allegedly infringing more than 46,000 copyrighted photos. The suit seeks “a substantial award of damages,” which could top $1 billion. CoStar’s CEO also threatened Realtor.com and Redfin with similar suits.

CoStar Group, the owner of Homes.com, Apartments.com, and several other real-estate websites, is suing Zillow, alleging the company has displayed tens of thousand of copyrighted photos on its sites.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, claims Zillow has displayed nearly 47,000 CoStar-copyrighted images on Zillow.com. CoStar is asking for permanent injunctive relief as well as “a substantial award of damages,” which could top $1 billion.

“Zillow’s theft of tens of thousands of CoStar Group’s copyrighted photographs is nothing short of outrageous,” Andy Florance, CoStar’s founder and CEO, said in a statement. “Zillow is profiting from decades of CoStar Group work and the billions of dollars we have invested. … We are committed to stopping this systematic infringement and holding the wrongdoers to account.”

Zillow, which was sued earlier this month for antitrust, did not immediately reply to Fortune‘s request for comment on the suit.

CoStar says it has, for decades, employed thousands of professional photographers to take pictures of residential and commercial real estate, licensing those photos to brokers, property owners and more. The photos, it says, are registered with the U.S. Copyright Office and watermarked.

Zillow, the company alleges, has been using those without paying for them. Rental listings seem to be at the heart of the complaint. Because many photos appear on multiple listings and pages, CoStar says they were displayed more than 250,000 times.

The suit also alleges the photos appear on Realtor.com and Redfin, which are owned by separate companies. CoStar accused Zillow of distributing the photos to those sites via a syndication agreement. (Neither of those sites is included in the suit, but Florance said “if these other sites do not immediately remove our images, we will have no choice but to sue them as well.”)

“Zillow has unlawfully published and used tens of thousands of CoStar’s copyrighted images to attempt to increase its standing in the online rental listings market,” the suit reads. “While Zillow may try to blame its customers, it is Zillow itself that is using CoStar’s images to build its products and earn revenue.”

CoStar has prevailed in this battle before. In 2019, it secured a $500 million judgment from the bankruptcy estate of Xceligent, a now-defunct real-estate listing platform, over the use of 38,489 copyrighted photos. The $1 billion estimate is drawn from the larger number of photos and appearances in the allegations.

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Homes.com Zillow 版权侵权 房地产科技 知识产权
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