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VHT, Inc. v. Zillow Group, Inc.

918 F.3d 723 (2019)

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VHT, Inc. v. Zillow Group, Inc.

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
918 F.3d 723 (2019)

  • Written by Liz Nakamura, JD

Facts

VHT, Inc. (plaintiff), a commercial real estate photographer, contracted with real estate brokers, agents, and listing services to take real estate photos for marketing purposes. Zillow Group, Inc. (Zillow) (defendant) ran an online real estate marketplace that featured VHT’s photos on two separate parts of Zillow’s website, “Listing Platform” and “Digs.” “Listing Platform” included listing information and photos of homes both on and off the real estate market. “Digs” allowed users to search for, and view, full-size photos of various interior design features. “Digs” queries searched only Zillow’s closed-universe, internal photo database, which was comprised only of tagged, searchable photos from the “Listing Platform,” including VHT’s photos. VHT sued Zillow for copyright infringement, arguing that Zillow’s use of VHT’s photos on “Digs” exceeded the scope of the marketing license VHT had with the brokers and agents who had listed the properties on Zillow’s “Listing Platform.” Zillow countered, arguing that “Digs” was fair-use because tagging VHT’s copyrighted photos for use in the “Digs” search engine was transformative. The district court held that “Digs” was not fair-use and granted summary judgment to VHT. Zillow appealed.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (McKeown, J.)

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