6 ms·

Does anyone know of any thoughtful writeups that make the case from Zillow's point of view?

tonyarkles 9y ago
Well, this isn't a particularly thoughtful take on it, but my uneducated guess would be "oh shit. Realtors posting pictures on Zillow are pissed that this blog exists and is mocking the houses they're listing. We gotta figure out how to shut that down."
tcpabc123 9y ago
If I read things right, the pictures were being used were actually from MLS sites, and Zillow was using them on their site. A large goal of the site is to take the different closed off MLS listings and aggregate them on one site for people to find. But, working with the MLS sites is extremely hard to do and they require sometimes large fees and have very strict/weird requirements to use the data. The big thing with Zillow, is that a problem for them is having access to as many MLS listings as possible, since most of the realtors use the MLS to post homes. Without these, its basically just a price estimator and search engine for homes. Zillow already has a tenuous relationship with the MLS sites and most likely pursued the lawsuit to prove to the MLS sites they are serious about the use of their images, and likely were worried about this affecting their relationship with some of those listing agencies. Although only speculation, I see this as more likely than the lawyers just going after this to be a bully (but they still probably did the wrong thing either way).
- andybak 9y ago
  MLS?
  - icebraining 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
nanistheonlyist 9y ago
Zillow gets it's listings from various MLS's, which tend to have fairly draconian rules about sharing data with third parties. If zillow lets random websites scrape and republish listings/photos without putting up a fuss, then they are violating their datashare agreements with the MLS and in theory could be cut off. Zillow is kinda in between a rock and a hard place here. Legally what the McMansion website is doing is likely fair use, but it still causes friction between zillow and their MLS partners, because McMansion copied the photos from Zillow.

Well, this isn't a particularly thoughtful take on it, but my uneducated guess would be "oh shit. Realtors posting pictures on Zillow are pissed that this blog exists and is mocking the houses they're listing. We gotta figure out how to shut that down."

tcpabc123 9y ago

If I read things right, the pictures were being used were actually from MLS sites, and Zillow was using them on their site. A large goal of the site is to take the different closed off MLS listings and aggregate them on one site for people to find. But, working with the MLS sites is extremely hard to do and they require sometimes large fees and have very strict/weird requirements to use the data. The big thing with Zillow, is that a problem for them is having access to as many MLS listings as possible, since most of the realtors use the MLS to post homes. Without these, its basically just a price estimator and search engine for homes. Zillow already has a tenuous relationship with the MLS sites and most likely pursued the lawsuit to prove to the MLS sites they are serious about the use of their images, and likely were worried about this affecting their relationship with some of those listing agencies. Although only speculation, I see this as more likely than the lawyers just going after this to be a bully (but they still probably did the wrong thing either way).

andybak 9y ago
MLS?
- icebraining 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

nanistheonlyist 9y ago

Zillow gets it's listings from various MLS's, which tend to have fairly draconian rules about sharing data with third parties. If zillow lets random websites scrape and republish listings/photos without putting up a fuss, then they are violating their datashare agreements with the MLS and in theory could be cut off. Zillow is kinda in between a rock and a hard place here. Legally what the McMansion website is doing is likely fair use, but it still causes friction between zillow and their MLS partners, because McMansion copied the photos from Zillow.