REA Group Sues Main Rival Domain for Data Scraping and Copyright Infringement

REA Group has sued its main rival Domain after accusing the Australian number two portal of infringing copyright for property photos and floorplans on the realestate.com.au platform.

The News Corp-backed giant has filed a federal court case against Domain for scraping 181 exclusive listings on realestate.com.au and then placing them on Domain's Pricefinder and Insight Business platforms.

REA claims intellectual property for all photos and schematics of each listing.

A spokesperson for REA Group said:

"Domain has systematically sourced content from a very large number of realestate.com.au listings without permission.

"REA does not restrict photographers or agents from using listing images in any way and they remain free to use them on any website or other property listing platform."

However, Domain has rebuked the lawsuit and argued that REA does not hold a monopoly over data submitted by homeowners and agents who use REA's platforms.

A spokesperson for Domain said:

"Of great concern is REA's efforts to acquire controlling ownership of valuable data from the agents and vendors who pay for this photography.

"This transfer of ownership shuold be deeply concerning to the industry, as yet another example of a dominant market participant taking actions that reinforce its position."

Domain argues it sourced and obtained the listing data legitimately according to "legitimate contractual arrangements...where the data is openly available."

Nevertheless, Domain said it has removed each of the 181 offending listings from its platform after being shown evidence of REA's intellectual property.

Is "Amoral" REA taking advantage of Vendor Paid Advertising?

Depending on your bias towards the original listing platform—REA, a dominant market leader that Domain readily admitted in its statement, or Domain, the rival trying to keep up—you could argue that both REA and Domain may be in the wrong here.

Australia's Financial Review quoted one agent as branding REA's lawsuit as "anti-competitive and dangerous behaviour"—even going so far as accusing REA of being "amoral" by "approaching consumers and photography companies to get intellectual property rights over photography."

Meanwhile, Matt Lahoud, CEO at The Agency, commented: "The vendor pays for the marketing and the photography, so they really have the decision."

But Domain's attack on the anti-competitive nature of REA's lawsuit may be distracting from its failings in due diligence before scraping the offending listings, which REA insists are exclusive to its platform.

Also worth noting is Australia's vendor-paid model, in which homeowners pay to market their property, including the cost of professional photography. Given this, then Domain may have a case; REA is claiming ownership of something they haven't paid for or even created—only used to create a listing.

Assuming the homeowner has intellectual property of an image of their home before it gets published to a listing, do they lose that intellectual property after they instruct an agent? The answer will have significant repercussions for both REA Group and Domain when this lawsuit closes.