WASHINGTON – Feb. 5, 2013 – The tug-of-war over the ownership of realty listings and listing data has ensued for years, but a new debate over copyright to real estate photography is now emerging as the visual web grows in popularity.

The right to images of a residential property are often waived, leaving homeowners, photographers, listing agents, brokers, multiple listing services (MLSs) and syndication sites to fight over who has ultimate control over use. At one MLS, for example, agents who upload images of a property legally cede copyright ownership to the listing service.

“It’s an interesting problem, and it appears that it won’t go away while the interests of the various parties aren’t aligned,” says Jeffrey Parry, an intellectual property and patent lawyer. “As long as the agents remain unconvinced that they’re being hurt … by the website scrapers, they won’t care about securing copyrights from the photographers.”

For real estate agents, it’s a Catch-22. It’s never wise to give up copyright ownership, but allowing a photo to be disseminated across the Internet exposes the listing to a larger audience.

“Anything that prevents dissemination of the listing information/photographs, such as the exclusivity created by copyright, certainly won’t help the agents’ cause,” Parry says.

Source: AGBeat (01/26/13) Rosales, Lani

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