| Keeping Track of Our Real Estate Listings for the Benefit of our Sellers and Buyers |
Last week I wrote a blog post that voiced my concern about the copyright violations that can occur with the pictures and/or photos we take for our real estate listings. In our MLS, there is no copyright protection, so I've begun watermarking my images. But based on your comments, I've discovered that in some areas, the opposite is the case. Some of you work in areas where your MLS prohibits the use of another REALTOR'S® real estate images. However, we know that there are many web sites that pick up our listings from our local MLS's, and others that pull them from our web sites as well. Basically, when we place our real estate listings on the web, they go into syndication fairly quickly!
For those of us who place a lot of emphasis on working with real estate sellers, and marketing our listings online, the syndication aspect can be a great asset. It's a great tool in helping us find buyers for our real estate listings. But many abuses can occur.
In keeping along the lines of my initial concerns about copyright issues with our listing images, it just so happens that today I found an article on Inman News, addressing a similar problem. (I was there to gather information from another article. I guess that one has to wait.) It was titled "Keeping Track of Your Listings". But that article was written in a manner that elaborates on the syndication aspect of our listings, and how things can go very wrong, when errors are made, or wording is changed, or as I've experienced in the past (just one example) when the total square footage is the only square footage that is used on a listing, instead of the actual living area square footage! We have no control over what these other sites do with our listing information!
As for the Inman News article, I'll let you read the details there. There really aren't any new issues that I haven't already encountered, but it's food for thought when the issue has continued, and only gotten worse as the years go by. Follow this link to the Inman News article.
As for us; as real estate professionals...
- What are your thoughts on this, and/or the images problems?
- How can we protect our real estate listing information?
- How can we provide accurate information to our real estate buyers when the information becomes distorted on an unknown site?
- And where does the culpability lay when the inevitable law suit eventually occurs?
If you're a real estate buyer, or a real estate seller in the Daytona Beach/Port Orange area, make a Smart Choice and contact Lisa Hill for all your real estate needs. <--Contact Lisa Hill
www.DaytonaBeachRealEstateSales.com
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