4 ms·

One option might be for AirBnB to have an opt-out policy for landlords.

• patmcguire 12y ago
  They can't, because then everyone would opt out. Professional landlords keep up on what's going on in their business as much as any other group of people - you don't think they have sites and mailing lists? - and renting isn't a business you can be careless about, because bad things really do happen to property. So AirBnB pretty much has to do the wink-nudge thing, where they officially forbid 90% of transactions, but let them happen anyway.
  • jdhopeunique 12y ago
    I am not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice, but hypothetically, couldn't the landlord simply have his lawyer send a list of addresses he owns to Airbnb? Shouldn't Airbnb have a responsibility to exclude addresses upon receiving a DMCA-style take down notice?
    • rcthompson 12y ago
      That has the same problem as DMCA takedown notices. Anyone could claim to own any address, so then Airbnb would have to verify every address claimed as un-sublettable by a landlord instead of verifying every address claimed as sublettable by a tenant.
      • jdhopeunique 12y ago
        I would suspect ownership of physical addresses to be a lot less murky and problematic than copyright ownership since it is a matter of public record and issues of fair use do not come into play. Ownership of a physical address could be verified once and thereafter excluded until a new landlord who buys the property opts-into the service. IANAL, but I would think that if Airbnb ignored a request to exclude addresses, that would likely expose them to a greater chance of losing a lawsuit. Additionally, cities or states could pass laws requiring services like Airbnb to have easy opt-out policies for landlords rather than banning the service altogether.
• JohnTHaller 12y ago
  They already have via their leases which prohibit subletting.