Why Reusing Listing Photos Could Mean Legal Trouble

That house you sold in 2012 has just come back on the market. You know you still have a picture somewhere--there it is--and the home still looks pretty much the same. You upload the photo and relist the property.

No problem, right?

Well, actually, you could be stepping into some dangerous legal territory.

We spoke with Larry Lohrman, a real estate photographer and blogger in Salem, Oregon. He frequently writes about issues at the crossroads of real estate and photography. One of the most common topics of discussion on his blog is usage rights for photographs commissioned from professional photographers.

"I have a friend who's an agent and photographer in Seattle," he says. After a conversation about just this subject, Lohrman's friend went back to his office of more than 80 agents and asked around. "Down to a person, no one" -- not the managing broker, not a single agent -- "understood that when the agents pay a photographer for photos, they aren't getting ownership of the photos. They're only licensing those photos for a specific time and purpose."

A number of recent high-profile cases have brought this issue to light, and may be cause for concern if you're not 100% sure of the legal status of your listing images:

• In 2008, photographer Liz Ordonez-Dawes was awarded more than $12 million when the court agreed that her client's distribution of seven photographs to third parties constituted copyright infringement.
• In 2013, Palm Beach County photographer Andy Frame sued several websites over misuse of his photos of Olivia Newton John's home in Jupiter, Florida.
• In 2014, a class action lawsuit was filed against CoreLogic for allegedly tampering with and distributing proprietary photographic works to their MLS clients.