Complaint Review: Re / Max DFW Associates

ReMax DFW marketed a property in Plano, TX in September 2013 using photographs without permission from or payment to the photographer.

In October 2012 the property in Plano, TX was sold by ReMax DFW (as buyer's agent), a ReMax agent. At that time photographs listing the property had been taken and prepared by myself, for the benefit of the then current owner.

In September 2013 the property was listed for sale again and this time sold by ReMax DFW (as seller's agent). The photographs used in the on-line ReMax listing and a promotional youtube video were the same photographs that I prepared a year earlier.  ReMax DFW did not seek permission to use them.  While they acknowledge they used the photographs, claiming it was "accidental", they refuse to pay for that use which resulted in the sale of the property.  ReMax DFW could only have obtained them by scraping them off the old listing (which was NOT made by ReMax).

The owner of the business in a telephone conversation on October 16th, 2013 claimed that "no damage was done" as they removed the photos and video once they were made aware. That removal was well AFTER the photographs had been used to make the sale of the property. Screen shots and the youtube video are available showing that the photographs were in fact used by Remax DFW, and were not taken down until after the sale of the property had been made.

Copyright law clearly protects photographic images. http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106  Real estate common practice is to pay a photographer to take pictures of subject properties and to allow them to be used for marketing the property.  

ReMax DFW made their commission on selling the property, so there certainly was commercial use made of the photographs.  In this case ReMax DFW is ignoring the law, and not even following their own common practice to pay for their use of copyrighted photographs.