Key West Realtors win federal copyright case

KEY WEST, Fla. – May 31, 2013 – A federal district court in Florida awarded $2.7 million to the Key West Association of Realtors® Inc. (KWAR) in a copyright infringement action against Robert Allen.

Attorney Steven Robert Kozlowski, who represented KWAR in the case, says the size of the award for the association sends a strong message in favor of copyright owners.

KWAR brought the copyright infringement action against Allen in 2011. Since at least 2007, KWAR said, Allen has operated websites, including KeyWestMLS.com, made up almost entirely of content, data and images reproduced from KWAR’s MLS.

“Rob Allen was not a member of the association and has never had a license to copy or display the content of the association’s MLS database,” said KWAR General Counsel Wayne LaRue Smith in a statement released Wednesday. “The association attempted to get Mr. Allen to cease and desist from his infringing activities in 2010, but he ignored the requests. At that point, the association was determined to hold Mr. Allen accountable.”

The case closely parallels two other cases outside Florida being litigated between American Home Realty Network, which operates the Neighborcity website, and two large regional MLSs: Metropolitan Regional Information Systems in the mid-Atlantic region and Regional Multiple Listing Service of Minnesota (dba NorthStar MLS).

Those cases also involve allegations of unauthorized copying of MLS listings for display on a website operated by American Home Realty Network, as well as the use of those listings to generate buyer referrals, says National Association of Realtors General Counsel Laurie Janik. “The main difference is that the defendant in the Florida case did not even show up to contest the allegations, whereas the cases being brought against [American Home Realty Network] are being vigorously defended,” Janik says.

In the Florida decision, “the court’s imposition of the maximum amount of statutory damages … was warranted by the evidence and for the purposes of future deterrence,” Kozlowski said.

“Awarding a lesser amount of damages would not serve the purpose of the Copyright Act in deterrence of further wrongful conduct by defendant,” said Justice James Lawrence King in his May 22 decision. “Absent the maximum statutory award of damages, future potential infringers of plaintiff’s MLS copyrights will only see the potential benefit of high commissions from ill-gotten leads. As such, the maximum statutory damage amount is necessitated to deter the future conduct of defendant Allen and others.”

Source: Stacey Moncrieff, Realtor® Magazine

© 2013 Florida Realtors®