REAL ESTATE LISTINGS--INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY??
Prompted by a comment by Kimo Jarrett on one of my last posts, I decided to write this post to get the opinion of others, maybe more informed members here on AR. The comment by Kimo was on the post STOP COMPLAINING AND START EXPLAINING!! written 2 days ago. My purpose for writing it was to open a dialogue about the need to get over the issue with the likes of Z,T and other lead generators who are literally taking over our profession without the credentials, the local knowledge or the good of the public in mind. Read Kimo's comment and my response:
Kimo Jarrett:
"A very informative and interesting post about being informed and taking action to grow and protect your business.
Why listing agents are not paid when their listings appear in any other medium other than their local or network MLS has always been a challenge for me, don't you? The agent's listing information is IMO, intellectual property and therefore has value, thus anyone who uses it should compensate the agent for its use or am I wrong in my assessment?
Agents must take action with their MLS Boards and adopt changes to ensure their listings are not shared without adequate or reasonable compensation. When that occurs, you could see a huge reduction in sales costs to the seller, couldn't you? Great post."
Me:
"--I have always thought that the "content" that is created by real estate agents IS intellectual property. And there was a time when we had protection for our photographs for instance. But all that seemed to disappear when a certain group of tech guys got involved in a business that they know nothing about! Now look at what is happening--and they seem to be protected from challenges about taking intellectual property--Now they are GIVEN it by the unthinking agents who don't want to do their own work to get listings!! It is a crazy set of circumstances, no?? I agree with you that action must be taken--but by whom? There is a willingness apparently to forgive and forget that Z scraped our listing information off our websites for nearly 10 years!---and that they found out that as "copied" information would not pull the juice in search engines so they came up with the approach which they now use: They require that agents hand over their content in order to appear, falsely next to listings they know nothing about--and pay Z big $$ on top of it!!"
I would love to hear from the rest of the members who may have a differing opinion--or if they want to continue the conversation about the fact that our content should be considered Intellectual Property and therefore they should be paying us??? (Or at least be liable for using the content without permission?)
WHAT SAY YOU? PLEASE COMMENT BELOW:
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**ALL INFORMATION AND CONTENT IN THIS BLOG IS ORIGINAL TO PAULA I. HATHAWAY. The views expressed herein are my personal views and do not reflect the views of Douglas Elliman Real Estate
Paula I. Hathaway, Senior Broker Associate, Douglas Elliman Real Estate
Southamtpon Village Real Estate Specialist since 1995; Also Specializes in North Sea, Noyac, Water Mill and Bridgehampton, New York
Diamond , Gold and Chairman's Circle Awards; Top Producer since 2005
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