Right-click, copy, save: It’s a common series of steps anyone can take to capture just about any picture online. However, it’s a move that could inadvertently lead to flying in the face of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a federal law overseeing online service providers, and it’s an entity like real estate data aggregator and distributor Midwest Real Estate Data that could help an unwitting offender find protection.
Say a photo posted to the MLS system, perhaps “right-clicked” and saved sans the requisite permission from the photographer or photography vendor, makes its way to a broker’s website, and now the broker is also in violation of copyright laws. But just as the DMCA shields copyright holders, it shields brokers as well through safe harbor provisions. Brokers need only to register an account with the DMCA office and select a service provider designation agent, like MRED, to serve as the recipient of notifications from copyright holders of any purported infringement and act as a takedown agent, tasked with investigating and removing the material in question if required.
“Brokers and brokerage firms are getting hundreds and thousands of photos on their website; they don’t know if their peers have used something that they shouldn’t be using. That’s why this program is so wonderful, because it helps them reduce the liability,” says Rebecca Pearson, broker outreach manager with Midwest Real Estate Data. Registering and making the agent’s contact information available on the website also serves as a good-faith effort to guard against the presence of fraudulent material on their websites.
A brokerage can register on behalf of all its associates for $6, or, if they choose not to do so, each individual agent would have to register separately for $6. The fee covers a three-year period, and all related websites belonging to a brokerage or agent fall under this protection, as well as material posted by the service provider and third-party contributors.
How MRED protects and informs its customers
MRED has been a DMCA-designated agent since 2015, and this year, the company — which provides MLS to approximately 40,000 brokers and appraisers and 8,000 offices in Chicagoland — took its vigilance in protecting against copyright vulnerabilities to another level with the launch of a new initiative. Now, MRED customers uploading photos through the system are presented with a box to check confirming that they have permission to use those images. “It comes together with the importance of the DMCA program to really make it aware in our marketplace that you need to have the right to use those photos,” says Sarah Burke Valdez, compliance manager with MRED.
On its website, MRED provides a link to the National Association of Realtors’ list of sample photography agreements.
“The managing brokers and the agents have to realize if you pay for a photo to use it for one thing, it doesn’t mean that you can use it once it’s pulled,” Valdez says. So far, MRED has not seen any major lawsuits pertaining to copyright infringement in the local marketplace, and the company is working to ensure that copyright holders aren’t given a reason to file one. And it appears MRED is being heard.
“I think there’s a lot of buzz about copyrights,” Pearson says. “Anytime we send out one of the publications, the compliance department phone and our help desk phone are ringing, asking us what they need to do and why they need to do it. So I do feel that people are trying to be really proactive.”
For more on MRED’s status as a DMCA-designated agent, visit mredllc.com/dmca.asp.