Greg's Corner

Zillow threatens architecture blogger over house photos

Real estate website Zillow has threatened 23-year-old architecture blogger Kate Wagner over her use of photos from their website. Wagner was running a successful blog called “McMansion Hell” where she took the gargantuan functionless houses to task. In many of her posts, Wagner would use a dry wit and humor to poke fun at many of the design-challenged houses by using photos from Zillow. Ms. Wagner is no mere snark blogger either. Here she is giving a TEDx Talk about the flaws in the poorly planned out houses.

Recently, Zillow took it upon themselves to send Ms. Wagner a letter demanding she remove any picture she used on her blog from Zillow. Ms. Wagner had always attributed the photos to Zillow and defended her use of them under fair use doctrine. However, in response to Zillow’s perceived threat, Ms. Wagner has decided to, at least temporarily, shutter her website. This is a shame since not only did she have some great content about some poorly designed houses, but she also had other insightful posts on her blog about architectural trends and history in the United States.

This isn’t even taking into consideration that Zillow themselves don’t own the pictures Ms. Wagner was using. They belong to other copyright holders who allow Zillow to use them. Zillow claims they are defending those copyright holders, but they appear to be petty in doing so by shutting down a blog of a college student whose sole income source is her blog. Maybe if Zillow decides to seek damages they should request a sense of humor in the settlement.