Real Estate Photographer Sues ‘Zillow Gone Wild’ For Using Property Pictures
A real estate photographer has sued prominent Instagram account “Zillow Gone Wild” for using her property pictures without consent — with her lawyer claiming that the company is based on “copying the work of others.”
Created by former Buzzfeed writer Sam Mezrahi in 2020, Zillow Gone Wild is a social media account devoted to showcasing some of the most eccentric property listings featured on the real estate marketplace Zillow.
Zillow Gone Wild has several million followers across its various social media platforms and is so popular that it was even spun off into a reality television series on HGTV earlier this year.
However, in a lawsuit filed late last month in the Eastern District of New York, real estate photographer Jennifer Bouma alleges that two of her images were used without permission in a post that appeared on Zillow Gone Wild’s website and social media.
According to a report on the lawsuit by Fast Company, Bouma wants Zillow Gone Wild to pay up to $150,000 for each of her photographs.
‘Not The Only Photographer’
In the lawsuit, the real estate photographer says she visited 21632 High Rock Road in Monroe, Washington, in September 2021. Bouma took a series of photographs of the four-bedroom, three-bathroom castle-themed home for realtors.
Bouma registered her photographs of the property with the U.S. Copyright Office in January 2022 and the house sold in December 2022 for $1.925 million.
But in February 2022, while the property was still on sale, Zillow Gone Wild shared since-deleted posts about the property on its Instagram, Facebook, Substack, and X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) which featured two of Bouma’s photographs.
One of Bouma’s photographs showed a dragon statue in the property’s garden while the other image depicted the home’s dining room, which was decorated with ornamental suits of armor.
According to her lawsuit, Bouma says she was never contacted by Zillow nor its parent company Kale Salad about using her images in the post. The photographer says she only discovered her pictures had been used in April this year.
Bouma’s attorney David C.Deal tells Fast Company that she is far from the only photographer whose work has been co-opted by Zillow and claims that the company “are in the business of copying the works of others for display on their website and social media.”
Copyright Infringement or Fair Use?
Deal says the photographer was forced to litigate after negotiations with Zillow Gone Wild’s parent company Kale Salad collapsed over the amount its insurer was willing to cover for using the images. Bouma’s attorney tells Fast Company that the photographer’s demand was in the region of $12,000 or $15,000 for each of the images.
According to law experts consulted by Fast Company, Zillow Gone Wild’s use of Bouma’s photos could be considered to be protected under the fair use doctrine, if it’s not deemed straightforward copyright infringement.
However, Bouma’s attorney tells the publication that it could be risky for Zillow Gone Wild to claim fair use — especially as there are allegedly other photographers who have had their work used by the social media account.
“If they want to fully litigate the issue of fair use, it comes with a lot of risk to it,” Deal says.
“If they lose, they really lose, because we have all these other clients, who are in effectively the exact same position as Miss Bouma.”
A settlement seems like it might be the most probable outcome of Bouma’s lawsuit. However, Fast Company questions if Zillow Gone Wild’s founder Sam Mezrahi has the funds to settle with the photographer. In April, Mezrahi told The Washington Post that the wildly popular social media account brings in “very little” money.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos and center photos via court documents.
