Comments on: Is Your Photo Licensing Consistent With Your Local MLS?

By: larry

larry — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:06:57 +0000

@Paula,
It’s the agent that uploads the photos that has the responsibility of making sure that the MLS rules and the photographers licensing is consistent because they are the only party that knows both.

You are right the agent cannot license the photos to the MLS if the photographer claims to own the copyright.

Currently many real estate photographers don’t ask the agent to sign a written licensing agreement and if they do the agent doesn’t understand the MLS rules so they don’t understand the implication of signing the photographers agreement. It’s currently a “bag of worms” but my point is that agents are open to legal actions from the photographer unless they pay attention.

By: Paula

Paula — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 17:05:28 +0000

I believe the local MLS states that the photos become the property of the board. How can the board take ownership without the written consent of the photographer? Would it hold up in court?

By: Scott Pruett

Scott Pruett — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:17:10 +0000

@ Jim,

It seems a little ambiguous in regards to rights held by any party beyond the “participant” (i.e. the agents/brokers?). However, the statement about granting the association full rights to use any listing data, more or less automatically, doesn’t provide much provision for copyright holders of listing data (e.g. photographers) beyond the agent. The value of an image easily increases when its usage increases.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 23:49:28 +0000

Curious, if you could rewrite the MLS rules to something that would still work for real estate agents and not beat up the photographer’s rights, how would you rewrite them?

By: Matthew Robertson

Matthew Robertson — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 23:46:19 +0000

My solution to this problem has been to split the liscencing according to the use of the images. My contract is a little more specific, but each pricing web page has the summary: “The images are licensed to the listing agent for unlimited use in all media to promote and market the listing, including indefinite archiving after the property has sold, as well as for other marketing uses for a period of ________.”

So for the listing itself, the photos are part of the historical record, and the agent/MLS can keep them forever. If s/he wants to show a feature sheet five years from now, that’s fine. But they are restricted in how they use the images in promotions that are not directly related to the property, i.e., mailouts and their web pages.

It’s fairly typical here to see condominiums being sold using the same exterior photo, even when agents belong to different offices and companies. None of mine, fortunately, but there’s plenty of education to be done.

By: Photo News Today » Blog Archive » Is Your Photo Licensing Consistent With Your Local MLS?

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:04:55 +0000

[...] Source and Read More: Photography for Real Estate [...]

By: Jim Duncan

Jim Duncan — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:42:00 +0000

Interesting that two Charlottesville folks find their way here.

From the Charlottesville MLS rules, with the assumption that they’re probably close to NAR standard –

Section 9.0………………………………….. Ownership By the act of submission of any property listing data to the Association MLS, the Participant represents that he has been authorized to grant and also thereby does grant authority for the Association to include the property listing data in its copyrighted MLS compilation and also in any statistical report on “Comparables”.
Section 9.1………………………………….. Copyrights All rights, title, and interest in each copy of every Multiple Listing compilation created and copyrighted by the Charlottesville Area Association of REALTORS®, and in the copyrights therein, shall at all times remain vested in the Charlottesville Area Association of REALTORS®.

10.2 …………………………………………….(truncated) Nothing contained herein shall be construed to preclude any Participant from utilizing, displaying, distributing, or reproducing property listing sheets or other compilations of data pertaining exclusively to properties currently listed for sale with the Participant.

How does the above jive real estate photographers’ copyright protections?

By: Scott Pruett

Scott Pruett — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:14:52 +0000

Interesting point Larry, and one that admittedly I haven’t put a whole lot of thought into. I don’t have time for a full response at the moment, but in case anyone is curious about other MLS’ rules, here’s our local one:

http://mls.caar.com/images/Forms/MLS%20Rules%20and%20Regs.pdf

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 07:02:50 +0000

Can’t be public domain. Public domain means that the creator of the image released that image to public domain. If that’s not the case, image remains copyrighted, no matter what any MLS says.

If the picture is taken from the public space (street). If not, a property release signed by the owner of the property would give the photographer all rights.

That’s the theory… Practically, I have so many pictures stolen by so many agents that I need to hire someone just to watch that. It’s not worth…

My tactics is to transform my “illegal clients” into real customers. Most of the time, the “thieves” have no idea that what they do is theft… So, I inform them, ask for compensation and:

receive compensation (5-10%) and they call me again
receive compensation (5-10%) never hear from them again
no compensation but I get a job instead 30%-40%
no compensation and job after a while 10-15%
nada zip zilch – the rest of them

It’s a great resource to look for in slow times… like now…

By: » Is Your Photo Licensing Consistent With Your Local MLS?

» Is Your Photo Licensing Consistent With Your Local MLS? — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 06:35:34 +0000

[...] Erin Brereton wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAfter participating in a number of discussions about photo licensing with real estate photographers I’ve realized that there is a disconnect going on between real estate photographers licensing and MLS photo usage rules. [...]