Costar Doubles Down On Zillow In Copyright Lawsuit

In a public update on its ongoing copyright infringement legal battle with Zillow, CoStar Group is claiming that the listing portal giant is continuing to infringe on CoStar’s intellectual property by displaying CoStar owned images on its site. 

Filed in late July,  CoStar’s lawsuit accuses Zillow of “rampant” copyright infringement of listing photos. The complaint claims that Zillow’s unauthorized use of CoStar images amounts to one of the largest real estate image infringement cases in history.

In the initial complain, CoStar claimed that Zillow had displayed nearly 47,000 CoStar-owned images on its website. According to the latest update from CoStar, Zillow has displayed an additional 4,618 CoStar images on its site since it filed the lawsuit in July. Additionally, CoStar claims that Zillow is continuing to display nearly 8,000 of the specific images it identified in its initial legal complaint. 

“Despite being caught red-handed blatantly stealing our copyrighted work, Zillow has [doubled down] to exploit thousands of additional copyrighted images without any shame,” Andy Florance, CoStar Group’s CEO and founder, said in a statement. Zillow’s repeated copyright infringement, combined with its lead diversion model that is the subject of a separate lawsuit accusing Zillow of deceiving homebuyers, exposes an ongoing pattern of morally questionable behavior. Zillow’s free ride on the agents’ listings and CoStar Group’s proprietary content is over.”

CoStar also claims that Zillow is also continuing to distribute these images to sites like Redfin and Realtor.com, both of which it has syndication agreements with. 

“Zillow is building its rental business on stolen photos. Zillow calls itself a tech company, yet supposedly it can’t spot images plainly marked with CoStar Group’s logo,” Gene Boxer, CoStar Group’s general counsel, said in a statement. “That doesn’t pass the straight-face test. The truth is simple: Zillow used our watermarked images, it profited, and — stunningly — it has kept doing it. Rather than learn its lesson, it doubled down, and the infringement scheme got even larger. We look forward to holding Zillow to account.”

According to CoStar, it holds the largest collection of real estate photographs in the world, producing more than 2 million original images annually through a network of in-house and contracted photographers.

Earlier this month, a Zillow spokesperson confirmed that the company had begun removing the photos in question from its site, as the company said is standard procedure in a copyright lawsuit. 

Zillow has not yet returned HousingWire’s request for comment.