Fair housing testers are actively searching REALTOR.com:

There have been many lawsuits, but the most recent fair housing lawsuit was filed by a self proclaimed "fair housing tester" who was activiely searching REALTOR.com for listing remarks that violate fair housing laws, and filed discrimination LAWSUITS against both the listing agents and broker-owners for violations found. The most recent case was interesting, to say the least.  To address the seriousness of this issue, we’ve developed three simple steps that you can take to protect your company, your agents and the public:

1. Learn About the Issue:What promoted this notice and details about the Fair Housing, Communications Decency and Digital Copyright Acts.
2. Check/Fix Your Listings: Look at several REAL life violations in currently found in our Berkshire MLS Listings
3. Get Great Training: Check out the Webinar we scheduled for you and our online training resources!

1-2-3 Fair Housing Steps in a easy tp print PDF

Copyright Symbol: 

The MLS board has voted to begin watermarking all MLS submitted photos with a copyright ©BerkshireMLS.  The purpose is to protect the listing data, help thwart copyright infringement and detect infringement if it occurs. We will aggressively pursue anyone who uses your listing data without authorization. While the BerkshireMLS owns the copyright for the compilation of listings, each Participant still owns the copyrights to his or her own company’s listings and photos.  (the independent contractor agreement you have with your agents, or work-for-hire agreement you have with any authors or photographers determine actual ownership / use of copyright).  There are many active lawsuits nationwide and two Ethics complaints have been filed locally surrounding copyright infringement BY AGENTS, using previous agents listing photos.  Anyone who copies photos that he or she didn’t take is stealing, and such actions are prohibited by copyright law.  You can only use photos or text with the permission of the creator.   Please remind agents they may not use photos unless they have obtained permission from the photographer, and make sure you have updated your independent contractor agreements to include copyright assignment.  NAR has created a fantastic “flow of rights” with sample copyright language for all situations a brokerage might encounter. 

Syndication in Your hands: 

There were slight modifications to the data input screen in FlexMLS when entering a new listing, giving you the option of syndicating your listings to Realtor.com, iBerkshires and/or Point2 Partners (including Zillow, Trulia, AOL and over 80 partners).  This keeps syndication in the hands of the seller / agent / broker for display where it is most effective.  As always, the MLS Board is studying syndication issues as they emerge and encourage you to have a conversation in your office about the pros and cons of online marketing of all types.  If you haven’t read the Clariety State of Syndication report yet, there is a direct link for some great information.

It is important to us to know if you’ve received and read this information.  As the broker responsible for the office, we hope that the message is coming through and we are helping to protect your best interests.  Please do us a favor and reply to this message to let us know you’ve received it… and let us know if there is anything else we can do to help.  We’d so appreciate that feedback!!