Initially filed in late July, CoStar’s lawsuit accuses Zillow of “rampant” copyright infringement of itemizing photographs. The grievance claims that Zillow’s unauthorized use of CoStar photographs quantities to one of many largest real estate picture infringement circumstances in historical past.
“CoStar’s determination to amend the grievance fairly than reply to our movement to dismiss is one more proof level within the weaknesses of their arguments and in addition a perpetual mannequin of wastefully leveraging litigation fairly than competing on the premise of product high quality and client expertise,” in keeping with a Zillow spokesperson
Within the preliminary grievance, CoStar claimed that Zillow had displayed practically 47,000 CoStar-owned photographs on its web site. As of late September 2025, CoStar claimed that Zillow had continued to show practically 8,000 of the particular photographs it recognized in its preliminary authorized grievance.
Within the amended grievance, CoStar claims that Zillow’s use of its photographs is a deliberate a part of the corporate’s enterprise technique. In response to the grievance, Zillow makes use of the photographs in query to construct itemizing pages for properties, together with these not actively for lease, and to coach its algorithms just like the Zestimate. CoStar alleges that Zillow has made vital cash off of CoStar’s photographs by utilizing them to entice property homeowners and managers to assert listings and pay for quite a lot of commercials and providers.
In brief, the amended grievance claims that Zillow constructed up its rental enterprise by taking CoStar’s photographs with out permission, utilizing them to draw clients and generate profits, even after being warned and sued.
“Since CoStar Group filed this lawsuit in July 2025, Zillow’s infringement has solely gotten worse—and more and more brazen,” Gene Boxer, CoStar’s common counsel, wrote in an emailed assertion. “Zillow infringed hundreds of latest CoStar copyrighted photographs after being sued, many plainly stamped with our watermark, bringing the entire variety of photographs at situation to greater than 53,000. Even worse, after claiming to have eliminated the photographs CoStar particularly recognized in its authentic grievance, Zillow circled and re-published a lot of these exact same pictures. Zillow has the instruments to cease — it’s merely selecting to not, hoping that its mass-infringement scheme will return a revenue. We look ahead to holding Zillow to account.”
In early September 2025, a Zillow spokesperson confirmed that the corporate had begun removing the photos in query from its web site, as the corporate stated is customary process in a copyright lawsuit.
Zillow has not but returned HousingWire’s request for remark.
