CoStar Group is continuing to rally against sworn nemesis Zillow in a legal battle over who has the right to display thousands of CoStar Group copyrighted images on its portal.
On Tuesday, the parent company of Homes.com released what it called an “update” to its ongoing lawsuit with Zillow. In the update, CoStar asserted that Zillow is “undeterred” and “brazenly continues to display thousands of copyrighted and watermarked CoStar Group photos,” and to distribute them amongst other partner portals.
The company also asserted that Zillow has started using even more of CoStar Group-watermarked photos on its website since the lawsuit was filed in July — nearly 4,618 more photos, according to CoStar’s count.
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CoStar also accused Zillow of continuing to display at least 8,000 of the images that CoStar originally identified in its July lawsuit complaint, and said the portal was sharing them with Redfin and Realtor.com through syndication agreements, and with Zillow’s affiliate websites, Trulia, HotPads and StreetEasy.
Inman has reached out to CoStar to ask if the company had another reason for issuing an update now — for example, an impending legal filing — and will update this story if it responds.
CoStar Group founder and CEO Andy Florance condemned Zillow’s actions while also pointing to a separate class-action lawsuit the portal is now facing related to its Zillow Flex referral program.
“Despite being caught red-handed blatantly stealing our copyrighted work, Zillow has double downed to exploit thousands of additional copyrighted images without any shame,” Florance 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 Group’s General Counsel, Gene Boxer, accused the portal of building its business on CoStar’s work for a profit.
“Zillow is building its rental business on stolen photos,” Boxer said in a statement. “Tens of thousands of them, many stamped with our watermark. That’s deliberate mass infringement. Zillow calls itself a tech company, yet supposedly it can’t spot images plainly marked with CoStar Group’s logo. 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.”
CoStar’s complaint alleged that Zillow had displayed nearly 46,000 CoStar-copyrighted images on Zillow Rentals and had displayed them more than 250,000 times on Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com rental listings.
At the beginning of September, Zillow confirmed that it has begun taking down some of the images identified in the lawsuit and that it was notifying its partners of the change. The portal told Inman the move was a routine procedure during copyright litigation. Zillow has yet to officially respond to CoStar’s claims in the legal proceedings.
The Homes.com parent company is seeking permanent injunctive relief and substantial damages.
