Slashdot Mirror
Zillow Drops Complaint Against Blogger After Backlash Over Copyright Claim (geekwire.com)
The blog "McMansion Hell" is back up and running days after Zillow threatened the site's creator, Kate Wagner, into taking it down. Zillow's decision to withdraw their complaint came soon after the Electronic Frontier Foundation announced it would defend Wagner pro bono. GeekWire reports: "We have decided not to pursue any legal action against Kate Wagner and McMansion Hell," a statement from the company said Thursday. "We've had a lot of conversations about this, including with attorneys from the EFF, whose advocacy and work we respect. EFF has stated that McMansion Hell won't use photos from Zillow moving forward. It was never our intent for McMansion Hell to shut down, or for this to appear as an attack on Kate's freedom of expression. We acted out of an abundance of caution to protect our partners -- the agents and brokers who entrust us to display photos of their clients' homes."
The Zillow response came in the wake of the week's events and a strongly worded letter to Zillow general counsel Brad Owens on Thursday (PDF here). EFF staff attorney Daniel Nazer said, "Our client has no obligation to, and thus will not, comply with Zillow's demands. Zillow's legal threats are not supported and plainly seek to interfere with protected speech." EFF said McMansion Hell was relaunching and no posts would be deleted, but that "in the interests of compromise, and because Wagner no longer wishes to use Zillow's website, she will no longer source photographs from Zillow for her blog."
The Zillow response came in the wake of the week's events and a strongly worded letter to Zillow general counsel Brad Owens on Thursday (PDF here). EFF staff attorney Daniel Nazer said, "Our client has no obligation to, and thus will not, comply with Zillow's demands. Zillow's legal threats are not supported and plainly seek to interfere with protected speech." EFF said McMansion Hell was relaunching and no posts would be deleted, but that "in the interests of compromise, and because Wagner no longer wishes to use Zillow's website, she will no longer source photographs from Zillow for her blog."
So they were using their lawyers to threaten the blogger under the assumption that the blogger wouldn't be able to afford to defend themselves (possibly knowing they were legally wrong). Blogger gets free representation - and suddenly the who's right/wrong comes back into the equation and they withdraw (because they are good corporate citizens).
I don't give a fuck about their bullshit excuses. Zillow can go fuck itself. I will actively discourage people from using their site.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
what to do. That C&D had NO value for Zillow. Even if the blogger couldn't get help and just went away, what good would it have done? What value would there be in shutting down McMansion hell? NONE. It's not any kind of threat to Zillow. It doesn't infringe on their business any. It makes people who can't afford million dollar homes laugh at the kinda-silly architecture while wishing we could afford to live in a house that stupid.
And now? Zillow, corporate bully, backs down the moment the other side has a lawyer. Making Zillow look EVEN WORSE because it's clear they knew they had nothing to go on, and if they proceeded, they'd get curb-stomped by the EFF.
stupid, Stupid, STUPID. Zillow just pissed away the good will (or at least inattention) of who knows how many people, because either they don't keep their lawyers on a short enough leash, or some exec takes it personally when they get mocked.
Either way, Zillow - get your shit together!
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
So, she copied the pictures from Zillow. I can't blame them for protecting their IP.
Except it's not "their IP". they just license the pictures from someone else. And even if they DID own the pictures, commentary, criticism, etc., is protected as Fair Use. Zillow is just another corporate bully.
You need to read up on Kate Wagner: https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2...
So, this woman is a total bitch who takes photos of their homes people list on Zillow and use them to make fun of the home owners because she personally finds large cookie cutter homes tasteless. What business is it of hers to get off on making fun of other people's lifestyles.
I think Zillow should have sued the worthless piece of human refuse so far into poverty she'd never see another dollar. I'm very disappointed that they backed off.
As a long time supporter of the EFF, I won't be donating anything to them for a long while.
... so, are you a realtor, or are you Zillow's in-house counsel, Christopher Poole?
"blogger agrees to stop unlawfully using copyrighted images without license"
As Zillow does not own the copyright to the images, it would have no standing to bring a copyright case and it could not itself offer a license.
Blogger was not using copyrighted images unlawfully; the use was protected free speech.
The headline here is click bait. A perfectly accurate headline would be "blogger agrees to stop unlawfully using copyrighted images without license".
No, it wouldn't, because what actually happened is that the entire archive of posts she's made using pictures from Zillow will REMAIN ONLINE -- only new posts going forward will source the images from elsewhere. Zillow did not want to allow her to do this.
As Zillow does not own the copyright to the images, it would have no standing to bring a copyright case and it could not itself offer a license.
Assuming this is true (I haven't read Zillow's TOS, so I'm not sure), Zillow could still bring a claim of tortious interference of business relations or similar claims. Given that the blogger's use of the images is probably fair use, Zillow would likely eventually lose, but it would cost the blogger six or seven figures to get to that result. The world is unfair.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
Simple solution would have been to crowdsourced replacement photos.
Simple? Who is going to spend their day snapshotting houses just so bloggers can write nasty things about them. I'm on the blogger's side in this case, but to think that croudsourcing can solve this is a bit silly.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
Zillow might not own the copyright of the images, it could still own the right to have full distribution rights on where the images might be shown if they have struck such agreement with the photographer. And as the blogger will not show the images then Zillow seems to have presented such evidence, they could even have a agreement where they are to represent the photographer for copyright issues with third parties and thus be able to claim copyright on the behalf of the photographer.
So, this woman is a total bitch who takes photos of their homes people list on Zillow and use them to make fun of the home owners because she personally finds large cookie cutter homes tasteless.
Kate Wagner is an architecture graduate student who teaches about good architecture partly by critiquing and parodying bad architecture. (And partly by publishing essays about the history of architecture and design.)
There needs to be a lot more of this in other fields of study. You can't learn about good stuff just by looking at the good stuff. Every programmer knows this: You learn so much about good programming by having to maintain shitty code.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Guess again AC, the Streisand Effect is fully applicable. How many people had ever even heard of or seen her blog, until Zillow filed the C&D letter to stop her posting of their pictures? The C&D effort blew up in their face. As not only Slashdot but several other communities and even a few news agencies have carried the story, introducing millions to her previously unknown blog. Thus ensuring that millions have now seen the pictures that before would have been seen by a few thousand readers at most.
This is an excellent example of the Streisand Effect as their effort to hide or remove the photos has ensured that many, many more have now seen the pictures, in the context of the blog than would have otherwise seen them.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Please read the full EFF response letter. https://www.eff.org/files/2017... Zillow's TOS do not and *cannot* contain any basis for action in this case. Even the attribution line below the photos saying that they were found on Zillow.com is nominative fair use of the trademarked name.
engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff