C
oStar Group, the parent company of Homes.com, has filed a lawsuit against Zillow, accusing the home search site of copyright infringement. The suit claims that Zillow is using over 46,000 watermarked images owned by CoStar on its sites and on Redfin and Realtor.com through syndication deals. This alleged infringement could result in damages of up to $1 billion.

    CoStar CEO Andy Florance stated that Zillow is profiting from decades of CoStar's work and billions of dollars invested. He threatened to sue Redfin and Realtor.com if they do not immediately remove the images. The lawsuit comes after a previous dispute between Florance and Realtor.com, which was resolved in April.

    The suit includes examples of images with the CoStar logo obscured or cropped out when displayed on Zillow's site. CoStar has previously won a $500,000 judgment against Xceligent Inc., a now-bankrupt real estate data company, for similar copyright infringement.

    This lawsuit is one of several ongoing disputes involving Zillow. The company is also facing a lawsuit from Compass, the nation's largest brokerage, over its policy on publicly marketed but not widely available listings. CoStar's CEO had previously criticized Zillow's Listing Access Standards as "outrageous bullying and intimidation," and referred to Zillow partners Redfin and Realtor.com as an "anticompetitive cartel."