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In typical Zillow fashion they sent a Cease & Desist Letter to a 23 year old blogger over use of images where she makes fun of suburban McMansions with her MacMansion Hell blog site. Zillow talks about 'transparency' and 'empowerment' of the public as its mission but tramples over a young enterprising girl with its size 12 jackboots demanding she removes all images from Zillow in 3 days.
Have they had a sense of humor bypass up their in Seattle? or, has the incredible riches they have amassed from imposing Zestimates on millions of homeowners affected their judgement? Whatever the reason Zillow is suffering a major social media backlash as very few people are coming out to support them with over whelming support for Kate Wagner the founder of McMansion Hell and who published the Zillow C&D Letter on Twitter asking for help as to how to respond to it.
In typical Zillow fashion they sent a Cease & Desist Letter to a 23 year old blogger over use of images where she makes fun of suburban McMansions with her MacMansion Hell blog site. Zillow talks about 'transparency' and 'empowerment' of the public as its mission but tramples over a young enterprising girl with its size 12 jackboots demanding she removes all images from Zillow in 3 days.
Have they had a sense of humor bypass up their in Seattle? or, has the incredible riches they have amassed from imposing Zestimates on millions of homeowners affected their judgement? Whatever the reason Zillow is suffering a major social media backlash as very few people are coming out to support them with over whelming support for Kate Wagner the founder of McMansion Hell and who published the Zillow C&D Letter on Twitter asking for help as to how to respond to it.
The author of the blog doesn't understand the fair use doctrine. When agents upload photos to Zillow they have to give Zillow all rights to the photos. Zillow is within copyright law in asking her to cease and desist.
The fact that she said her blog is her livelihood means that it is a commercial site, not an educational site.
The author of the blog doesn't understand the fair use doctrine. When agents upload photos to Zillow they have to give Zillow all rights to the photos. Zillow is within copyright law in asking her to cease and desist.
The fact that she said her blog is her livelihood means that it is a commercial site, not an educational site.
She will lose.
Actually, it's not so cut and dry at all. The fair use factors are a balancing test, and must be applied on a case by case basis. Commercial use is just one part of the first of the four prongs, and although often determinative, is not always. The Supreme Court actually held in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music that a commercial parody can qualify as fair use.
Now, they did distinguish parodies from satire, which they considered a broader social critique as compared to parody. Now I've never looked at the blog, so I couldn't even begin to guess whether it is more parody or satire, but, this isn't nearly as open and shut a case as you claim it to be.
Actually, it's not so cut and dry at all. The fair use factors are a balancing test, and must be applied on a case by case basis. Commercial use is just one part of the first of the four prongs, and although often determinative, is not always. The Supreme Court actually held in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music that a commercial parody can qualify as fair use.
Now, they did distinguish parodies from satire, which they considered a broader social critique as compared to parody. Now I've never looked at the blog, so I couldn't even begin to guess whether it is more parody or satire, but, this isn't nearly as open and shut a case as you claim it to be.
She claims that it is an educational site, not a parody site. That is what she wrote on her blog.
If she has enough people supporting her, there is a simple solution. Take down the zillow pics and get people to take pics of the places and send them to her and list them under a creative commons license.
The author of the blog doesn't understand the fair use doctrine. When agents upload photos to Zillow they have to give Zillow all rights to the photos. Zillow is within copyright law in asking her to cease and desist.
The fact that she said her blog is her livelihood means that it is a commercial site, not an educational site.
She will lose.
I'm all about hating on McMansions but it wasn't particularly funny.
The author of the blog doesn't understand the fair use doctrine. When agents upload photos to Zillow they have to give Zillow all rights to the photos. Zillow is within copyright law in asking her to cease and desist.
The fact that she said her blog is her livelihood means that it is a commercial site, not an educational site.
She will lose.
Are you sure about this? It would seem then that Zillow could then refuse to allow the photos to be used on a competing site or MLS.
Something I found online...from another blog.
"They did send me a much nicer letter that Zillow VP of communications and public affairs Katie Curnette sent to Wagner today. I’ll reprint the whole thing below, but here’s the key line: “We do not own the rights to many of the photos on our site, and therefore can’t give permission for third parties, such as yourself, to take the photos from our website for any purpose."
How does Zillow own the pictures when the same pictures are on every re site?
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