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Legal - Zillow

CoStar Group et al. v. Zillow Group, Inc.

On July 30, 2025, CoStar filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against listing platform Zillow in federal court in New York for infringing almost 47,000 copyrighted CoStar photographs. This is one of the largest image infringement lawsuits in history, and could expose Zillow to more than $1 billion in damages.

CoStar’s Complaint shows many examples of CoStar’s watermarked images on Zillow’s website.

CoStar-Zillow-Litigation-case-image

CoStar’s Complaint also shows Zillow displaying CoStar’s photographs on its partners Redfin and Realtor.com’s network of sites, following recent “syndication” deals in which Zillow paid Redfin and Realtor.com to carry Zillow’s listings.

CoStar’s Complaint highlights Zillow’s own description of how much information it can obtain from a photograph, recognizing details as granular as granite countertops. Based on Zillow’s own description, identifying and removing CoStar-watermarked photos should be straightforward—Zillow just chooses not to do it.

Since its founding in 1986, CoStar has invested billions of dollars to create the most comprehensive database of real estate information in the world, including the largest library of real estate photographs. CoStar has paid thousands of professional photographers to create millions of images, which are owned and copyrighted by CoStar.

CoStar protects its intellectual property by registering its photographs with the United States Copyright Office and marking its images with its distinctive star watermark. While CoStar licenses its images to customers, it does not allow its customers to use its images on competing listing marketplaces.

In its suit, CoStar alleges that Zillow is committing systematic copyright infringement. Specifically, CoStar is suing over how Zillow—not its customers—uses CoStar’s copyrighted photographs. Zillow misuses CoStar’s copyrighted photographs in multiple ways:

  • Zillow uses CoStar’s images to attract new advertising customers, like property owners and managers, by using CoStar photographs to build webpages for properties not actively listed for rent and then inviting owners or property managers to “claim” these properties. Once an owner or property manager “claims” a property, Zillow tries to sell rental advertising packages for that property to the owner or property manager.
  • Zillow also uses CoStar’s photographs on active multifamily listings. One way it does this is by allowing the owners or property managers who “claim” properties to generate rental listings using the same CoStar photographs that Zillow used to attract the customers to “unclaimed” property pages in the first place.
  • As noted above, Zillow sends CoStar’s images to its partners, Redfin and Realtor.com, under recent “syndication” deals where Zillow paid to be the exclusive supplier of rental listings to these supposed rival sites. As a result of these agreements, Zillow is publishing CoStar’s copyrighted images not just on Zillow’s websites, but also on other rental listing websites. None of them have permission to use CoStar’s images.
  • Zillow uses CoStar’s images to create or improve other Zillow content. Zillow uses the photographs as an input for features that Zillow highlights as key offerings on its website such as its personalized recommendations to users and its “Zestimate” and rental value estimator. For example, Zillow says it uses photographs to determine whether a listing has features like granite countertops, which can enhance value.

Despite facing a federal lawsuit, Zillow’s disregard for intellectual property rights remains unshaken. CoStar has uncovered thousands of new instances of infringement since filing the lawsuit in July 2025. Perhaps worse, in January 2026 CoStar discovered that Zillow is not only infringing new images, but also re-displaying CoStar-owned images that CoStar previously identified to Zillow and which Zillow supposedly removed from its websites. As detailed in a letter to Zillow, this persistent, and now reoccurring, infringement indicates that Zillow believes the profits it will reap from its wrongdoing, even factoring in the costs of litigation, outweigh the need to respect IP rights. In short, to Zillow infringement is just a cost of doing business. Zillow’s ongoing misconduct demonstrates the necessity of the relief CoStar seeks in this lawsuit, including a permanent injunction and substantial damages.

CoStar originally sued Zillow in federal court in New York, but agreed to transfer the case to Seattle after Zillow revealed that despite marketing itself as a fully-remote, cloud-based company with a flagship office in Manhattan, nearly all of its key witnesses and evidence related to its infringing systems are located in Seattle.

Other Lawsuits Against Zillow

Zillow currently faces numerous other federal lawsuits alleging that it is violating a slew of statutes, including antitrust and consumer protection laws. Lawsuits brought by federal and state regulators allege that Zillow is, among other things, attempting to monopolize the rental listing marketplace by paying a rival site not to compete, thus driving up rental advertising costs and ultimately rents themselves. Multiple class actions allege that Zillow is driving up housing costs, including by (1) duping homebuyers into hiring agents from whom Zillow extracts a huge commission cut, and (2) forcing agents to steer homebuyers to expensive Zillow mortgages that are significantly above market rates. The cases include:

  • The Taylor Lawsuit: Filed in September 2025, this class action accuses Zillow of deceptive lead diversion practices, alleging that Zillow receives hidden fees from agents to whom homebuyers are diverted, and forces those agents to steer their homebuyer clients to above-market Zillow mortgages. The suit encompasses racketeering claims and details evidence from a dozen confidential witnesses, including current and former Zillow-affiliated agents.
  • The Armstrong Lawsuit: Initiated in November 2025, this class action targets Zillow’s alleged illegal steering of homebuyers to Zillow Home Loans, alleging kickbacks to real estate brokers in exchange for customer referrals to Zillow’s mortgage arm.
  • The Dupuis Lawsuit: Filed in January 2026, this class action by real estate agents accuses Zillow of antitrust violations, alleging that Zillow leverages its market dominance to extract commission fees and illegally ties its mortgage services to agent referral programs.
  • The FTC Lawsuit: On September 30, 2025, the FTC sued Zillow and Redfin for antitrust violations, alleging an unlawful agreement to eliminate competition in the rental advertising market, seeking injunctive relief and potential divestiture.
  • The State AG Lawsuit: Filed on October 1, 2025 by attorneys general from five states, this lawsuit mirrors the FTC’s claims against Zillow and Redfin, emphasizing the anticompetitive impact on rental costs and seeking to enforce antitrust laws.
  • The Compass Lawsuit: Filed on June 23, 2025, Compass accuses Zillow of monopolization through the “Zillow Ban,” which allegedly forces all home listings onto Zillow’s platform, violating antitrust laws and reducing consumer choice.

Zillow has been sued for copyright infringement before. Just a few years ago, a jury found Zillow liable for copying thousands of copyrighted photos owned by real estate photography studio VHT.

CoStar Is Committed to Protecting its Intellectual Property from Mass Infringement

CoStar previously obtained a half billion dollar judgment against former rival Xceligent based on a finding that Xceligent had infringed 38,489 copyrighted CoStar photographs. Xceligent was found to have stolen thousands fewer CoStar images than Zillow is accused of infringing.

  • October 22, 2019 

    CoStar Awarded Record $500M Settlement From Xceligent In Copyright Suit

    Read more on CRETech

CoStar also sued Commercial Real Estate Exchange Inc. (“CREXi”) for copyright infringement in the Central District of California in September 2020. In June 2025, the judge in that case found CREXi had deliberately copied and cropped CoStar copyrighted photos.

  • June 26, 2025

    Federal Court Finds Rival CREXi Copied and Cropped Thousands of CoStar’s Copyrighted Images

    Read more on CoStarGroup

  • December 20, 2022

    CoStar Sues Crexi for 'Flagrant and Widespread' Intellectual Property Theft

    Read more on Globe St

888-226-7404
1201 Wilson Blvd
Arlington, VA 22209

CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP) is commercial real estate's leading provider of information, analytics and online marketplaces.

888-226-7404
1201 Wilson Blvd
Arlington, VA 22209

CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP)
is commercial real estate's leading
provider of information, analytics
and online marketplaces.

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