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I was once a real estate broker and former mortgage loan officer. I loved my work and the business. Then, I became a lawyer. Particularly, an IP lawyer focusing on copyrights and trademarks and trade secret litigation. The copyright cases deal with photo infringement, software infringement, movie infringement and more.
One of our key areas of practice is photo infringement. We represent fine art photographers that spend a lot of time and money on travel and housing to go to great places to seek to get "the perfect shot." This takes time, energy, money, and a bit of luck to catch the perfect shot at the perfect time of day and then to edit that work into a piece of art that wins awards.
We deal with a lot of cases dealing with real estate broker/agent infringement. Many times (even the largest of real estate companies, the ones you know) will take beautiful artwork they find online and use it in their agent websites and social media business sites such as Realtor.com, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and other sites. Of course, this can lead to lawyers pursuing agents and brokers for the infringement.
As a broker myself (at one time), I knew I had a duty to supervise all real estate activities that require a license. This was in the broker rules and regulations and, at least in California, is part of the commissioners' rules and regulations. This includes monitoring advertising to make sure there is no false advertising, making sure the real estate license is being used, and even making sure there is no copyright infringement going on.
Many broker/agent websites even have their own copyright symbols on their website, which tend to portray that all content on their website (blogs, videos, photographs, and images, for example) is the protected content of the brokerage. Even when such sites contain unlicensed images from third-party photographers.
For the agent, this creates clear copyright infringement liability. But many brokers feel they are not to blame, or they try to blame their webmasters for the "accidental" infringement, as we hear time after time as a beautiful image adorns the front page of their websites.
In these cases, both the broker and the agent can be subject to liability. It is surprising to me that more brokerages don't engage in training of their agents and have webinars to train their agents on the importance of clearing ALL CONTENT that is displayed on their website.
The legal information video below addresses and discusses this potential liability in layman's terms.
WATCH REAL ESTATE PHOTO INFRINGEMENT VIDEO HERE
Vondran Legal® can help defend photo infringement copyright claims and provide one-hour webinars to train your agents on proper protocol and the risks of being accused of copyright infringement.
I hope you enjoy the video. If you do, please LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and COMMENT with your thoughts, tips and insights. What have you seen out there?
Attorney Steve® Vondran.
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