Zillow claims that Costar ‘weapons is armed’ to reduce competition

In the first letter, Zillow asks that the case is being transferred to the American court for the western district of Washington, where Zillow claims that it should “have been submitted.”

Zillow says that the suit should have been submitted in Washington because it is a company in Seattle and “most likely Zillow witnesses are in Seattle, with others along the west coast.”

“De Costar -bedrijven zijn Delaware -bedrijven gevestigd in Virginia, hebben een kantoor in Seattle en hebben geen verband getoond met dit district. De Zillow -gebruiksvoorwaarden, waaraan Costar is onderworpen, voorzien in een exclusieve locatie in Washington. Costar koos vermoedelijk voor dit forum om ongunstige Negende Circuitwet te voorkomen, een tactiek die geen gewicht moet krijgen,” de letter, de letter, aangesproken op Monday, states.

The second letter, which was submitted on Tuesday, is a request for a pre-motion conference on Zillow’s motion to reject the case. In the letter, Zillow claims that “Costar did not argue that Zillow’s alleged infringement was voluntary, a fundamental requirement of direct infringement of copyright.”

“It has also not been plausible that Zillow had the practical opportunity to monitor the copyright status of images that have been uploaded to its websites or that Zillow has derived a direct financial benefit from the alleged infringement, as required for his deputy infringement claim,” the letter says.

In addition to these two requests, Zillow also uses the letters to share some thoughts about Costar and its lawsuit.

In the letter on Monday, Zillow claims that the court case “The last attempt by Costar is to arm the copyright law differences for competitive pressure, in accordance with the history of submitting suits against industrial rivals.” A similar claim was made on Tuesday, with Zillow stating that the court case “is not about protecting copyright”, but instead about “Costar’s efforts to use a lawsuit to suppress competition and innovation.”

“Zillow has a growing and dynamic rental platform that helps landlords, real estate agents and agents to make contact with potential tenants, also by enables them to upload photos of their offers,” said Tuesday’s letter.

“Costar has submitted this case because the success of Zillow – driven by legal competition and a superior product – threatens its position as one of the most powerful players on the online rental market for residential rental homes. Instead of competing with the earnings, Costar wants to abuse copyright legislation to reduce the choice and the consumers in the process and to reduce the trial process.”

The archives also note that the photos in the center of the court case have been provided by customers who witnesses that they have the right to grant Zillow a license for their use. Moreover, the Zillow policy suggests that copyright owners ask to remove their images from the site.

“Instead of using this system, Costar chose to relocate the burden to the courts and to submit the immediate court case without prior notice to Zillow. Costar has not sufficiently argued for his claims and Zillow will ask a pre-motion conference about a motion to dismiss,” said Monday’s letter.

In an e -mail statement, Costar -founder and CEO Andy Florance called this a ‘shameful attempt’ of Zillow ‘to blame his own customers for his massis abuse of copyright protected photos of Costar, and added that he found the move as not convincing’.

“Our complaint against Zillow describes in detail the many ways in which Zillow himself was not in favor of systematic misconduct. Zillow published tens of thousands of images of a costuar, including highly marked with our watermark and Zillow benefited from those images,” Florance added.

The General Counselor of Costar Gene Boxer also pushed back against the claims of Zillow and stated that the company has established its lawsuit to guarantee responsibility and to protect intellectual property rights that are not only of the company, but also for the integrity of the real estate market as a whole ‘.

“Zillow must and will be kept to explain for his misconduct,” Boxer added.