McMansion Hell blogger faces lawsuit from housing site Zillow - Sensationalist Headlines

[t]http://i.imgur.com/scMkzJz.jpg[/t] [t]http://i.imgur.com/SpZX3S1.png[/t] [media]https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/879429709251137537[/media] [url]http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/mcmansion-hell-blog-faces-lawsuit-from-zillow[/url] [quote]It looks like McMansion Hell has bigger worries than off-kilter dormers: The beloved blog, which has earned a devoted following for its hilarious takedowns of shoddy construction (example: "Rich enough to build useless fireplace; not rich enough to add mantel." ) that underline the often ridiculous nature of oversized, overpriced properties, is in hot water after real estate site Zillow has threatened legal action for the site's unauthorized use of its photos. Founded in 2016 by graduate student Kate Wagner, an avid architecture buff with a knack for clever insults, McMansion Hell uses listing photos of properties across the country, which she overlays with text pointing out their obvious design flaws. Zillow, for one, didn't see the humor and served Wagner with a cease-and-desist letter on Monday, which she promptly posted to her Twitter account.[/quote]

I think that left house looks pretty neat.

Wouldn't this count under Fair Use since it's kinda like a parody?

Apparently Zillow don't even own the images they're trying to claim copyright over. [url]https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/27/15880934/zillow-mcmansion-hell-copyright-kate-wagner[/url]

[QUOTE=V12US;52409490]I think that left house looks pretty neat.[/QUOTE] Honestly those are some pretty mild examples of the houses the blog riffed. It was mostly focus on really tacky rich people houses (aka "McMansions")

[QUOTE=UberMensch;52409514]Apparently Zillow don't even own the images they're trying to claim copyright over. [url]https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/27/15880934/zillow-mcmansion-hell-copyright-kate-wagner[/url][/QUOTE] [QUOTE] [B]Here’s the much nicer letter Zillow sent to Wagner today, in full:[/B] - - - - - - - - - - Dear Kate, Over the past day, we’ve had a lot of questions from the media about the cease and desist our legal team sent to you. I understand why – your blog is well-loved by its many fans. I wanted to write to both thank you for taking down the photos, but also to give you a little bit of context around the request. Mostly, though, I want to stress that we do not want you to take down your blog. We hope you will be able to resume your writing and find other sources for photos. As for why we requested you remove the photos from Zillow – we do not own the rights to many of the photos on our site, and therefore can’t give permission for third parties, such as yourself, to take the photos from our website for any purpose. We get them from brokerages and MLSs who are advertising homes for sale and through those agreements we have an obligation to protect the interest of the copyright holders who license the images to Zillow. We are happy to answer any questions about this, and I sincerely hope you are able to find other sources for photos. Best, Katie Curnutte[/QUOTE] Case is solved. Nothing to see here, folks.

That's depressingly reasonable and unfun.

If you credit the source, wouldn't this be fair use as commentary anyway? I like Mcmansion Hell, it makes me feel better about my shitty northern hovel. Some of the houses on there are terrible

I feel like this is grey enough to be covered by fair use. While reasonable as an explanation, I still fail to see how making fun of houses on a website that will likely never be seen by anyone who could actually afford one of those listings is privately owned, even though it's listed on the public site? Even through the TOS, this technically means that any news article / mention / whatever of zillow with a screenshot of the website or house on it is technically also an unauthorized reproduction. The second message comes off softer because they backpedaled into "we're not sure" territory [editline]28th June 2017[/editline] damn, the blog is down entirely now. was hoping to get some laughs out of it but it's temporarily out of service rip

[QUOTE=Noob4life;52409570] [QUOTE]Dear Kate, Over the past day, we’ve had a lot of questions from the media about the cease and desist our legal team sent to you. I understand why – your blog is well-loved by its many fans. I wanted to write to both thank you for taking down the photos, but also to give you a little bit of context around the request. Mostly, though, I want to stress that we do not want you to take down your blog. We hope you will be able to resume your writing and find other sources for photos. As for why we requested you remove the photos from Zillow – we do not own the rights to many of the photos on our site, and therefore can’t give permission for third parties, such as yourself, to take the photos from our website for any purpose. We get them from brokerages and MLSs who are advertising homes for sale and through those agreements [B]we have an obligation to protect the interest of the copyright holders who license the images to Zillow.[/B] We are happy to answer any questions about this, and I sincerely hope you are able to find other sources for photos. Best, Katie Curnutte[/QUOTE] Case is solved. Nothing to see here, folks.[/QUOTE] This sounds like ass-damage control. Fair use is obvious here. This reeks of SLAPP to me. Zillow doesn't have [i]any[/i] obligation to harass people it arbitrarily thinks are violating the intellectual property rights that it doesn't own. I've also never heard of a licensee being designated to enforce those rights. An agent, yes, but a licensee, no.

I hope this shit doesn't stick, MMH was one of my favorite blogs.

The initial letter was a C&D, not a threat to sue. Zillow doesn't own the images so they can't actually take her to court over them as far as I know, but they can ask her to cut it out. Anyone can issue a C&D to anyone over anything, they aren't legally binding unless you're actually violating their rights. The friendly-worded letter makes sense. I've been in the process of buying a house and there are a lot of Weird Laws around realty with disproportionate consequences. Zillow probably doesn't want to risk running afoul of them by openly allowing images from their site to be redistributed (especially for the purpose of ridiculing them) so they issued a non-binding C&D. Yes, they should have opened with the friendly letter and not the scary legal-sounding one, but it would look very bad to the brokerages they get the images from if they didn't say anything about it. Uh, in short, if a realtor takes a picture of a home, it can only really be duplicated and shared with the owner of the home's permission, so Zillow [I]is[/I] legitimately obligated to say "hey stop it" since they're the source for the images, even if they can't actually take MMH to court themselves.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;52409979]The initial letter was a C&D, not a threat to sue. Zillow doesn't own the images so they can't actually take her to court over them as far as I know, but they can ask her to cut it out. Anyone can issue a C&D to anyone over anything, they aren't legally binding unless you're actually violating their rights. The friendly-worded letter makes sense. I've been in the process of buying a house and there are a lot of Weird Laws around realty with disproportionate consequences. Zillow probably doesn't want to risk running afoul of them by openly allowing images from their site to be redistributed (especially for the purpose of ridiculing them) so they issued a non-binding C&D. Yes, they should have opened with the friendly letter and not the scary legal-sounding one, but it would look very bad to the brokerages they get the images from if they didn't say anything about it. Uh, in short, if a realtor takes a picture of a home, it can only really be duplicated and shared with the owner of the home's permission, so Zillow [I]is[/I] legitimately obligated to say "hey stop it" since they're the source for the images, even if they can't actually take MMH to court themselves.[/QUOTE] It would be pretty stupid for such an enormous company to issue a C&D with nothing behind it besides "waaaah you broke our TOS and we have no damages and we think you're infringing on someone else's IP". That's not protecting their rights at all, even if they were somehow obligated to do so.

[QUOTE=Snowmew;52409996]It would be pretty stupid for such an enormous company to issue a C&D with nothing behind it besides "waaaah you broke our TOS and we have no damages and we think you're infringing on someone else's IP". That's not protecting their rights at all, even if they were somehow obligated to do so.[/QUOTE] It would be pretty stupid in any other field, yes, but because of the way realty law is, someone could decide to go after Zillow for permitting their images to be duplicated and redistributed and they would have a case. Zillow is covering its ass.

I used to live in a mcmansion and I thought it was pretty neat. Granted it didn't look too good from the outside though. If anything, it was designed from the inside out instead of the other way around.

i know next to nothing about proper architecture so i'm afraid that one day i'll finally save enough money to buy a house and be fucking roasted by a passing architect

[QUOTE=Jund;52421784]i know next to nothing about proper architecture so i'm afraid that one day i'll save enough money to finally buy a house and be fucking roasted by a passing architect[/QUOTE] Go ahead and take a look through some of the McMansions he posts So long as you're not building penis decks, mini castles, or have a billion unmatching windows, you'll probably be fine :v:

[QUOTE=Noob4life;52409570]Case is solved. Nothing to see here, folks.[/QUOTE] Nooooo, where is my drama now? I wanted to be angry at something. [QUOTE=Snowmew;52409835]This sounds like ass-damage control. Fair use is obvious here. This reeks of SLAPP to me. Zillow doesn't have [i]any[/i] obligation to harass people it arbitrarily thinks are violating the intellectual property rights that it doesn't own. I've also never heard of a licensee being designated to enforce those rights. An agent, yes, but a licensee, no.[/QUOTE] Now I am confused

something barbra strisand effect something frivolous lawsuit.

[QUOTE=Jund;52421784]i know next to nothing about proper architecture so i'm afraid that one day i'll finally save enough money to buy a house and be fucking roasted by a passing architect[/QUOTE] The criticism on the first house just strikes me as pedantic and fussy, especially on the first house. The "totally not awkward" peice is the only part I don't like. The rest of the criticism strikes me as nitpicking. What's wrong with having two doors? My house has two doors. What's wrong with trees? And the house's value, how is that the architect's fault?

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;52423277]The criticism on the first house just strikes me as pedantic and fussy, especially on the first house. The "totally not awkward" peice is the only part I don't like. The rest of the criticism strikes me as nitpicking. What's wrong with having two doors? My house has two doors. What's wrong with trees? And the house's value, how is that the architect's fault?[/QUOTE] i would imagine it's because the two doors both look like the front door. the house value thing is just a joke about the shape of the house and the conditions these mansions were built in.

Their homes are poorly designed, much like their email formatting, the second page only has their signature.

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;52423277]The criticism on the first house just strikes me as pedantic and fussy, especially on the first house. The "totally not awkward" peice is the only part I don't like. The rest of the criticism strikes me as nitpicking. What's wrong with having two doors? My house has two doors. What's wrong with trees? And the house's value, how is that the architect's fault?[/QUOTE] too many secondary masses (gables galore) no balance wildly inconsistent windows (one of them even reaches the top of the gable) two front doors value falling due to poor craftsmanship, bad design, oversized house with aesthetics that are hard to sell in today's modern market basically mcmansions are unnecessarily large houses (mostly) built in the 80-90s as a way to flaunt your wealth instead of investing in a well-built, well-designed, but smaller house. they boomed during reagan's presidency as the face of white suburban america, where his economic policies basically made him the oprah winfrey of cheap mansions YOU GET A MANSION. YOU GET A MANSION. EVERYBODY GETS A MANSION [url]http://mcmansionhell.com/post/148605513816/mcmansions-101-what-makes-a-mcmansion-bad[/url] [url]http://mcmansionhell.com/post/151896249151/the-10-circles-of-mcmansionhell-the-mcmansion[/url] [url]http://mcmansionhell.com/post/150597521816/mcmansions-101-revisited-aesthetics-aside-why[/url]

It was just a generic C&D. Nothing personal, probably just their catch all tactic. All it required was a response and there would be no dramas. Seems like a popularity grab for her twitter handle and nothing more by making them a villain.

McMansions are traesh, that baseless C&D is also trash

I deliver to these things all day every day, I love this blog. This is great. My favorite thing about pulling up to them or driving through the neighborhoods is just speculating how soon they'll be demolished or foreclosed on.