judge Can you be sued because of another Broker’s mis-use of copyrighted images?

If a Broker lists a home and uploads copyrighted images as part of their listing feed, which is then in turn placed in  RETS/IDX, which you promptly display on your site — the answer is YES.

It has happened, it is still happening, and it happened to me.

Someone does an image search and everyone that shows up displaying that copyrighted image gets the “email“. In this case, the Broker was listing a new complex with a pool. There are no pool shots in New England in March (check back in late June) so they grabbed one from the net and published it. (If you are interested, it was someone floating around in a pool on raft)

The original Broker was left untouched, as their website could not be found. I settled for a lesser amount than that shown below. Note if I missed the date, it would have been 5x the indicated amount.

gimages

Think about the potential for liability.  There about ~30K active listings in Massachusetts.  What are the chances of this happening many times?

Here is a good read: Take Your Own Photos

What would you have done?  Did I take the easy way out?