“As discussed above, Zillow has the means to cease. It is simply choosing not to do so,” CoStar said in its amended complaint regarding the alleged copyright infringement.
Zillow continues to infringe Kostar’s copyrighted images in thousands of rental properties, according to an amended complaint filed Friday by Kostar in an ongoing lawsuit that began last July.
The new complaint was filed in Western Washington, where Zillow is headquartered. CoStar says it has identified additional images that the portal is using inappropriately, that Zillow has failed to remove images that CoStar flagged as infringing, and that the portal has republished images that were previously flagged and removed.
“Therefore, it is futile to notify Zillow, no matter how specific,” CoStar wrote in the amended complaint. “In the face of a federal lawsuit alleging significant wholesale infringement and repeated letters identifying new, ongoing, and recurring infringements, Zillow persists.”
CoStar has dominated the commercial real estate and apartment rental sectors for years. This is an area where Zillow is increasingly looking to compete, and rentals are now one of Zillow’s fastest-growing revenue segments.
Meanwhile, CoStar is building a top real estate search portal featuring for-sale inventory via Homes.com.
The battle spilled into court last July, when CoStar claimed Zillow was infringing on its copyrighted images.
“Zillow’s post-litigation actions therefore confirm an unavoidable truth: Zillow, a high-volume, persistent infringer, made a deliberate business decision to exploit and continue to exploit CoStar’s intellectual property, knowing the risks and presumably expecting that its wrongful conduct would yield a greater net benefit than the alternative of discontinuing mass infringement, regardless of the legal consequences,” the new filing states.
Co-star’s general counsel Gene Boxer said Zillow is “getting more brazen” with its alleged violations.
“Following the lawsuit, Zillow has infringed thousands of new CoStar copyrighted images, many of which clearly bear our watermark, bringing the total number of images at issue to more than 53,000,” Boxer said in a statement.
“What’s worse, after CoStar claimed to have removed the images specifically identified in the original complaint, Zillow turned around and republished many of those exact photos,” Boxer’s statement continued. “Zillow has the means to stop it. It simply chooses not to do so in the hope that it will profit from its large-scale infringement scheme. We look forward to holding Zillow accountable.”
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