Zillow begins pulling photos involved in copyright lawsuit
CoStar sued Zillow in July for allegedly using over 46,000 CoStar-owned images on its website, and says the portal is now trying "to hide its wrongdoing."
Zillow has started to remove thousands of photos from its website a little more than a month after CoStar filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the company.
The home search giant confirmed that it has sent out emails to its partners to inform them the company will be taking those photos down. Zillow has syndication agreements with Redfin and Realtor.com, resulting in some of the photos in question being posted on their websites.
Zillow has not formally responded to the complaint or admitted any wrongdoing. A company source said the removal of photos is the type of step commonly taken to preserve its defense in ongoing copyright infringement cases.
CoStar's billion-dollar allegations: CoStar filed the suit on July 30, claiming that Zillow was using more than 46,000 watermarked images owned by CoStar Group, the parent company of Homes.com.
In its filing, CoStar called it "one of the largest, if not the largest, image infringement cases in history," suggesting that Zillow could be liable for more than $1 billion in damages.
Most of the images are of multifamily rental listings, according to the CoStar complaint, which claimed the CoStar logo was obscured or cropped out when the images were displayed on Zillow.com.
At the time of the filing, CoStar CEO Andy Florance also threatened to sue Redfin and Realtor.com if the photos weren't "immediately" removed from their sites as well.
What CoStar had to say: Following Zillow's announcement, CoStar General Counsel Gene Boxer suggested in an email that this belated move proves Zillow always had the power to decide what shows up on its home search sites.
"When caught red-handed, some companies issue apologies — but Zillow tries to hide its wrongdoing," Boxer said. "Before CoStar sued, Zillow knowingly displayed tens of thousands of CoStar's watermarked photos and monetized them on its rental platform and partner network. We look forward to holding Zillow to account for its mass infringement."
Zillow has until Sept. 30 to respond to the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
This story has been updated to include comments from CoStar's general counsel.