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Century 21 Sues Rogers Over Copyright Infringement
Century 21 Canada (“Century 21”), a national real estate company, is suing Zoocasa Inc. (“Zoocasa”), a real-estate information website controlled by Rogers Communications Inc. (“Rogers”), one of Canada’s largest communications companies. According to Century 21’s statement of claim, Zoocasa is accused of infringing copyright by “scraping” information, such as photographs and property descriptions, from Century 21’s broker and representative websites without permission. Subsequent requests to Zoocasa by Century 21 for removal of such data have been ignored. Century 21 is also demanding that Zoocasa seek approval before hyper-linking to any of its broker listings or websites. Although Century 21 has voiced concern over Rogers’ apparent entry into the real estate market, including the potential of an unfair competitive advantage, Zoocasa argues it has no intention of competing with the real estate industry, and merely represents a website that is complimentary to the industry’s Multiple Listing Service. According to Zoocasa, its services involve filtering and searching online information similar to what Google does, with future plans to offer realtor tools and a subscription service.
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