Photos in the Multiple Listing Service are Copyrighted, Remember?
Where are the Ethics
Copyright Infringement is an important issue and in my mind not to be taken lightly. It is often associated with the terms piracy and theft. In copyright law infringement does not refer to theft of objects that take away the owners possession, but where a person exercises one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder without authorization. There is much more to the explanation but in a nutshell in the words of the dictionary, it is the use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the copyrighted work, or make derivative works, without permission from the copyright holder.
The meaning of permission is: the authorization granted to do something, formal consent, the act of permitting.
The meaning of without: the absence, omission or avoidance of
Without Permission, well put the two words together and in my mind you get....no ethics and theft as in the particular situation below.
Recently, the sellers of a property I have listed decided if the home did not sell within a certain time period they would instead lease the property. They had just purchased another home and they did not want this one vacant, it was a good option.
All of the photos in the MLS are photos I had taken, which are clear and show the home and property very well. The sellers had recently met a real estate agent with her license hanging with a leasing real estate company and they talked about the possibility of leasing the home if it did not sell.
The real estate agent with the leasing agency decided to advertise sooner than expected and use my photos. Without Permission. She even bragged to the sellers she was doing this but they did not understand she should not do this without speaking to me, but they did say they wondered and that she assured them it was OK. She then proceeded to copy them from the MLS, take off the copyright watermark and put her firm's name on the corner of the photos instead. When I spoke with the MLS they stated that no one would have been given permission to do that from them as the photos belonged to me.
After she did all of this she went on vacation, but before leaving put the the advertisement on their leasing internet site. People could not get hold of her so after they drove by they called me for information as my For Sale Sign was in the yard. No one at her office to contact? My sellers were furious.
My Managing Principal Broker discovered the ad on their website after I told her that I was getting all these calls about leasing the property, and let me know the agent ad used almost all of my photos. I was simply amazed that she would have the audacity to even try this. I had no idea. The day after I discovered this and was ready to give a notice to remove the photos from the internet, we received an offer on the property that is now accepted and pending. The sellers are making sure that their contract or whatever they have with her is null and void so they do not have any legal problems with her or her firm. Their listing is now off of the internet.
All I can say is PHOTOS IN THE MULTIPLE LISTING SERVICE OR ANYWHERE ELSE FOR THAT MATTER are copyrighted and it is an infringement of Copyright Law to lift them in any way, it is out and out theft!
Where are the Ethics and for that matter common sense
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