Real Estate Blog - Copyright and Real Estate Web Sites, My Experience

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Copyright and Real Estate Web Sites, My Experience

Copyright has been an abiding interest since I first discovered a number of maps copyright protected by me on another agent's web site. In fact, 13 unique maps from my web page were boldly used on another agent's web page - without my knowledge or permission.

What made the discovery so shocking was that I ran across them by accident while looking for an agent to refer a home buyer in the Annapolis area where I didn't have an agent available at that time.

I'm not an attorney and write the following as a real estate broker and having been on the Internet since 1995. That said, for interested parties, copyright protection conveys upon the creation of the image, article, writing, photograph, etc. There is no necessity to have the copyright notice on the material. Nor is it necessary to have the material registered to have copyright protection. What copyright registration provides for is statutory damages. However, the rightful owner of the copyright protected owner of the image (maps in my case), writing, article, unique compilation of information, photograph, etc. may proceed in court against a copyright violator and avail themselves of the protections of the copyright laws. Since some of my maps have been registered and some have not, it's a time consuming process, I chose to proceed with civil litigation against the agents who owned the web page on which I found my maps.

Fast forward to August 2006. I have successfully settled 5 demands for damages in the Tens of Thousands of Dollars with agents/brokers who thought that it was acceptible to help themselves to the images of local maps that they found on my web pages.

The lesson is clear. If you didn't create it, write it, photograph it, draw it, have it made for you for a fee, DON'T put it on your web site. For others who have found themselves in the same situation, don't let anyone get by with using your copyrighted property without your permission.

I'm happy to speak with anyone about this important matter.

Posted by Lenn Harley, Real Estate Broker, Maryland & Virginia on 08/13/2006 06:36 PM

Comments (39)

39 Comments on Copyright and Real Estate Web Sites, My Experience

AUG

2006

Lenn,

I've fought long and hard to get copyrighted material lifted from my website taken down from other agents' sites over the years. When I've approached the offending parties and demanded my pages be taken down I've gotten the most asinine remarks, like "I don't remember even visiting your site," right, she stole a whole page verbatim -- and it was the "about me" page. Imagine my horror when I read on her site about . . . me.

Another abysmally stupid one was a Long Island agent who apparently liked my testimonials. She lifted one verbatim, and it was sent to me by an attorney. The second, she stole most of and added a few words of her own. Interestingly the first thing she speaks about on her home page is how ethical she is . . . NOT!

Lenn,

The copyright enforcement experiences you've shared in the past have given me a much higher awareness of the issue.

Welcome to Active Rain.

Maureen

Hey Lenn,

Welcome on board Active Rain. I love having another "voice of reason" to read.

To Others, When Lenn says she is happy to talk to others about this matter, she means it. Lenn has been a wonderful resource to me.

Kristal Kraft ~ Denver

AUG

2006

I've had comments and requests for information from any number of agents about their experiences with copyright infringement. Problem is their approach is always to contact the offender directly.

I NEVER contact the person myself. The first and all contacts come from my attorney. Not only that, our first contact is a DEMAND letter that they (1) remove my copyrighted material from their web site and pay $XXX in damages by a date certain or we will file suit in the appropriate court. The material always comes down, some faster than others, but none more than two days. Then nothing.

It usually takes letter #2 from my attorney with a copy of a Complaint for Damages for Copyright Infringement to get a personal response or response from their attorney.

Some agents/brokers pay faster than others. Some apologize and I don't press for a large settlement. I believe the smallest was $2,000.

The thing that folks have to understand is that this is a very serious matter. Pursue the copyright infringers vigorously and we'll all be better off for it.

Lenn Harley

Just today I was discouraging a newbie blogger in MD from taking a shine to any of Lenn Harley's maps... She must have enjoyed one of Bonnie Erickson's blog entries greatly. I don't believe we have had that problem before on RT blogs.

SEP

2006

The "resolution" of my copyright infringement was not really satisfying to me. When I first found the entry, I was shocked. I read through expecting that she had just lifted my computer created milk bottle illustration, but I was sooooo wrong. She had cut and pasted the whole entry from my blog. She wasn't even sneaky about it. I posted the entry, she created her blog 2 days later, and posted my entry as her third! Proof in the dating as to who owned the original! It was dumb to do on an RT Blog. The community is too small and checks up on itself frequently. Dumb move. The IC people sent a "remove it" e-mail. I would rather have had a big hullabaloo and had her broker be notified, etc. Without some kind of penalty she could have another blog somewhere else and be posting other people's entries as her own daily. I've checked her RT blog frequently since and she has not written anything new. It's just sitting in cyber space taking up room. As to her ethics? I wouldn't want to do business with her.

SEP

2006

I'm surprised that IC didn't drop her from the blog. What does a person have to do to get dropped???

I think Bonnie's plaigarist is in MD. When I first saw it I emailed, her, Bonnie and ?someone at IC... I said something about Do Not Steal Lenn Harley's maps..

SEP

2006

Thanks, Lenn and others, for devoting time and thought to the copyright issue. I once found an entire article I wrote lifted and used to promote a company's business. One way to find out if your material has been copied is to search Google(TM) and others like it for distinctive phrases you wrote. Also, when I sent my cease-and-desist letter to the infringing party I copied the offender's hosting company and got immediate action and apology.

JUL

2007

You make a great caase for copyrighted material. But alas most people do not copyright their work so suing will not be an option

JUL

2007

Dave. You are very wrong.

Registration simply gives one STATUTORY protection and makes collecting damages easier.

FEB

2008

I love this post. I've been so hesitant to share things, because I've had the experience of people using my photos or quotes (original) that surprises and saddens me.

I'm going to subscribe to your blog and bask in your brilliance, with sincere gratitude!

OCT

2008

Lenn,

Insomnia. I wanted to read your first post. Why am I not surprised at the subject matter?! I referred someone to your blog just today (well, yesterday, as it's three in the morning) who was looking for practical information on copyright and the internet.

Mike in Tucson

Thanks Mike.

I believe that when I wrote my very first ActiveRain post, I was engaged in copyright litigation so it was on my mind.

OCT

2008

Lenn, what a great way to start your blogging in the rain. I'm so glad AR brought this important topic and blog to my attention again. Let's see...1 down and 1132 to go until I read them all from you?

Tina in Virginia

Tina. How nice!!!

I appreciate folks who read and comment on my blog.

Interesting comment about RT. I had to walk away from it a couple of years ago. Too much sniping and too many Toms. It seemed to always be the same few people with the same few agendas. AR, on the other hand, is a super resource, full of great people.

Ron Tiller, JIM, e-JIM WooWoo85

Ron.

A voice from the past.

I agree. RealTalk got too testy for me too.

Since I was one of the "same folks" who contributed a LOT, I got a lot of the sniping. Couldn't figure out why there was so much acrimony there.

One fellow who sniped at me for years, expected me to consider him for a $2Million buyer when I was looking for an agent there. Not likely. I like to refer to nice folks.

ActiveRain is a different world. A friendly place.

Lenn,

Thank you for a clear understanding of what 'copyright' means for a blogger. I have not had content lifted (at least that I know about) but have noticed many of our photograhps being uploaded and, I presume, sent on. In this case though I can;t complain. We do A LOT of reporting on activities in on our neighborhood (Del Ray in Alexandria, VA) and pictures play a large role. We have business cards that are specific to our site, www.GWSleptHere.com, and give them out whenever we take pictures or talk to folks. One night this summer my wife was taking a picture of a father/son and gave him our card - he immediately said "Oh, you're the GWSleptHere lady." Turns out we had taken a picture of him, with his younger son, earlier in the year and after seeing it on our blog had sent it on to relatives in Chicago. For now it's good publicity. If it shows up on another blog, well that will be another story.

Michael

i've had someone re-produce my entire website--including adding their name to my bio, word for word. My webmaster reported them to the "Internet Police" and the site was taken down within 24 hours. We were also able to "trace" the location of their server by their IP address and made the telephone call...a grandmother answered saying "that she did not know what her grandson was doing all the time in the basement on his computer" and then hung up the phone. I know subscribe to "CopyAlert.com" which lets you know when someone copies your website content. Karen Deis.

Hi Lenn, Nice to have "found" you again. I enjoy your articles and have missed you on RT.
Like your photo too!

Michael. Generally, when person permits their photo to be taken, it's safe to use it. Of course, there's no predicting how a person will react when they see their image on a web site. Although the law doesn't require that I do so, in the interest of public relations, if someone objects to their image or even an image of their house, I take it down. I'm a nice agent.

Keren. Watch them. Watch them like a Hawk. However, as you probably know, I'm not satisfied with simply having them "take it down". I want damages for the time that they used my property.

Judy. Hey. How are you. I seem to be getting contacts from old RT friends lately. Unlike RealTalk, on which I could simply post comments, here I can publish entire articles. Of course, the IC blog permits that now too. In fact I've posted a few there. Not many.

Lenn, I am always amazed at the amount of knowledge and expertise you have garnered in your career and am thankful for your willingness to share! Thank you for giving us the tools to move forward without reinventing (or researching) the making of the wheel!

Cat. Thanks. Nothing special. I am, by training and dedication, a research junkie.

Webmaster and agent alert! - Who Owns the Material on Your Web Site?
(Copyright management - is there intellectual material theft on your web site?)

http://www.carolyne.com/websitetheft.html

Hi Lenn,

Please tell all your friends and colleagues to read this article that I wrote after "my experience."

Cordially,

Carolyne

Lenn, so great to read your first blog here on AR. I have read so many others since coming here a few months ago. You were one of my favorite people on RT, so to find you again where you are able to write more completely, with photos, maps, it is GREAT!

Lenn,

Unless its a crowd shot, we always ask - especially when it involves small children.

Michael

OCT

2008

The sad part is that it's not usually the agent that does the plagiarism...it's the web designer. That is one of the biggest dangers about using one of these so-called new SEO master web designers. They are doing 5-10 websites all for the same city, and have massive amounts of text that THEY write. What do you think the liklihood is that I could write 40 pages of text for 6 or 7 identical websites about Myrtle Beach and my brain wouldn't fry? The big trick for most of them now is that they have a program that sucks in text and re-arranges the words. Or they gather 10 websites about the same city together and alternate sentences from all of them.

When I get with an agent to do a new website, it's understood from the beginning that they have to help write the content. They can send me an email with bullet points, or write the paragraphs and then let me tweak them, But I can't write a bunch of stuff effectively for some little area in Arkansas that I've never seen. And I'm not going to copy something someone else wrote. I will occasionally visit Wikipedia and re-write something I find...or perhaps the chamber of commerce for the area. But agents that think they are going to pay a webmaster to create a site and never spend a minute of their own time to help are just asking for trouble. I've seen it over and over again.

Now I will say this. With Google cache-ing photos, this presents a problem with protecting them. If you take a photo and put it on your site...and you don't ever want anyone else to use it, then you should prevent Google from indexing it. Otherwise you can count on that photo being used, changed, and duplicated many times over. It may not be legal and isn't necessarily fair...but I'll guarantee you that if a nearby agent doesn't use it, when you have a beautiful picture on your website there are probably 50 copies of it being used in Pakistan, the Bahamas, Mexico, or somewhere that you will probably never see. Even though Google Images repeats the copyright phrase every time on every picture, a photo of a beachfront house in Miami that looks cool is going to be found in numerous places after a year or so. I used to have a client that spent hours going through Google images taking beach pictures and would DEMAND that I put them on his site! Now he has money and hires professional photographers, and gripes all the time about people stealing HIS pictures...:-(

You can also add a tiny bit of code snippet to your pages that prevents right-clicks. An experienced person can go around that easily, but it will stop some of the newbie agents from taking photos off your site sometimes.

Bottom line is to be very careful who you hire to do your websites, and make it clear to them that you will not tolerate them using other agents' content when they build it. If you hire somebody who has 10 websites for other agents in your area, and doesn't require you to help with the content, that's a red flag that he's almost certainly going to be stealing or operating a word chop-shop.

And if you are a victim, do remember that truly, most of the agents are lazy and have allowed someone else to do their content. They probably have no idea the webmaster is doing it. Not an excuse, but it may help you to keep your bloodpressure down a little bit.

Sharon. Indeed. The ActiveRain lets me blab to my heart's content. I remember the RealTalk days where I was chided, snided, and derided to being proliferic.

Love ActiveRain.

Michael. Good idea, but if they're in a public place it isn't a requirement. If it were the Paparazzi would be out of business.

Jan. Thanks for your perspective. In my case, most of the agents have template web sites where they can add photos themselves. They can't blame it on the web master. I have only had one agent blame a web master and sustain that claim. Fact is, the agent/broker is responsible. They are the ones from whom I collect damages.

Lenn - I was afraid to say anything on RT because of so many negative commenters. It appeared very elititst to me. I was a constant 'lurker' as they called people who didn't comment. Who wants to comment when you are ignored or derided? Oh yes, the few times I commented I was totally ignored. That's why I love Active Rain. Everyone is so positive here.

OCT

2008

Sharon. Not to worry. ActiveRain is a friendly place. Sure, there are a few snipers. Folks are folks. But, we can always dump them if they comment on our posts with negativity. For me, I just give them the facts. It's hard to deny facts with their negative opinions.

FEB

Lenn, I was just looking at the post that started it all. :-)

FEB

David. Indeed. When I joined ActiveRain, my first post was about copyright because I wanted to make the statement to the membership "Don't steal from Lenn's blog or web pages".

A few have and I made them pay.

APR

Lenn, interesting that this was your first post on AR, and today there was another post on the same topic.

JUN

Lenn:

After more searching, I found this other post by you. Thanks for the information. Tere

Tere. HA! This was the first post I ever did to my blog.

OCT

Interesting how there are few things new under the sun - we all still deal with this just as much, maybe more (at least I do).

Steve. Goodness. You're reading some old stuff.

NOV

Lenn -

You may be a research junkie (see above)...but there's no junk within your content.....pirated or otherwise.

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