Housing and Community Development

I have a number of projects I would like to post on Houzz.com, but cannot reconcile Houzz's agreement terms with my own sense of propriety and the legal boundaries on the images my photographer (and I believe almost any other professional photographer) will grant me.

The wording from Houzz's terms of agreement is as follows:

... you authorize us and our affiliates, licensees and sublicensees, without compensation to you or others, to copy, adapt, create derivative works of, reproduce, incorporate, distribute, publicly display or otherwise use or exploit such Content throughout the world in any format or media (whether now known or hereafter created) for the duration of any copyright or other rights in such Content, and such permission shall be perpetual and may not be revoked for any reason. Further, to the extent permitted under applicable law, you waive and release and covenant not to assert any moral rights that you may have in any Content posted or provided by you.

I'm not an attorney, but here are the issues as I see them:

1) Houzz can technically do anything they desire with the content, including any licensing of the content, or perhaps publish books for profit, or whatever else.  There seems to be no limitation to what they can do (if they so desired)...and at no compensation to me as "poster" or to the photographer who owns the copyright.
2)  Once posted, you cannot revoke the permission or rights given to Houzz.  I perceive this to be a big problem if indeed a copyright infringement did occur.
3)  Further down in the agreement, by posting content, one agrees to indemnify Houzz (and all licensees, officers, etc, etc.)  for any copyright issues.  Specifically "....any allegation that any materials you submit to us or transmit to the Website infringe or otherwise violate the copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, or other intellectual property or other rights of any third party"  Allegation is a key word here.

Houzz is a great website (that is free!) and I have no indication they are doing anything other than providing a great resource to design professionals and clients..  Obviously LOTS of firms are posting there.  I have no ill will in posting this to the group....but my question to the knowledge community is can anyone state how they are addressing these legal issues?  I know of no photographer who would allow me to agree to this.  Are other photographers OK with this?  Are "posters" agreeing to these terms without understanding them?  Are all of you OK with the "unrevokable" clause?  And why?  Finally, the defense indemnification could get messy, particularly if Houzz licenses the images to others because it can create multiple parties to defend, even for an alleged infringement of copyright.  Has anyone else thought this through and come to a reasonable conclusion?

Many thanks.

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Stephen Robinson AIA
Principal
Axios Architecture LLC
Atlanta GA
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Stephen, I've had the same reservations.  Whenever I agree to allow a magazine post photos of my work, and I've been in several books and magazines over the years, I always ask the publisher to sign my agreement that respects my copyright.  They usually do, which includes posting my copyright (not theirs) next to, on top of, or at least somewhere in the publications.  If you want to allow anyone to publish your images, I would suggest that you first bring the image into a program like PhotoShop, then put this text in a corner overlaid on the image, in small, but legible type:


(C) Copyright 2012, Stephen Robinson, All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

the (C) is supposed to technically be a circle with a "C" inside it.  I got that wording from an Orlando copyright attorney decades ago and it has served me well.  Your placing this in some corner of your image is sure to be noticed by anyone considering the unapproved use of it.  My concerns parallel yours, namely: once you post uncopyrighted imaged, people might assume that this is now public property, free for the taking, without credit to you, me or any other architect. 

And that's the main concern and why so many people regard what we do as free or worth next to nothing: because many of us give away our rights when we do such things as posting uncopyrighted images of our work.  How is anyone supposed to know that's your design, after your images have been stolen by hundreds of people and posted in their little scrapbooks of the type of home they want to have one day, or worse yet: "My House Ideas!"  How would you like that?

You raise very good points, Stephen.

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Rand Soellner AIA
Architect/Owner/Principal
Home Architects
Cashiers NC
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I am assuming that Houzz and similar sites will continue to do this until they get push back.  Would it make sense to gather a group of concerned Architects to comment that they will stop posting or not start to post without this being addressed?  I see the danger being that as long as they continue to grow, and designers, architects and that like are hungry for exposure that they will feel that they are "above the ethics".

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Bradley McDonald AIA
Component President
AIA San Fernando Valley
La Crescenta CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-31-2012 06:52
From: Rand Soellner
Subject: Posting on Houzz & Similar Websites

Stephen, I've had the same reservations.  Whenever I agree to allow a magazine post photos of my work, and I've been in several books and magazines over the years, I always ask the publisher to sign my agreement that respects my copyright.  They usually do, which includes posting my copyright (not theirs) next to, on top of, or at least somewhere in the publications.  If you want to allow anyone to publish your images, I would suggest that you first bring the image into a program like PhotoShop, then put this text in a corner overlaid on the image, in small, but legible type:


(C) Copyright 2012, Stephen Robinson, All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

the (C) is supposed to technically be a circle with a "C" inside it.  I got that wording from an Orlando copyright attorney decades ago and it has served me well.  Your placing this in some corner of your image is sure to be noticed by anyone considering the unapproved use of it.  My concerns parallel yours, namely: once you post uncopyrighted imaged, people might assume that this is now public property, free for the taking, without credit to you, me or any other architect. 

And that's the main concern and why so many people regard what we do as free or worth next to nothing: because many of us give away our rights when we do such things as posting uncopyrighted images of our work.  How is anyone supposed to know that's your design, after your images have been stolen by hundreds of people and posted in their little scrapbooks of the type of home they want to have one day, or worse yet: "My House Ideas!"  How would you like that?

You raise very good points, Stephen.

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Rand Soellner AIA
Architect/Owner/Principal
Home Architects
Cashiers NC
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My general sense is that firms that use Houzz are not as interested in copyright protection as they are in participating in social media and multiplying the benefits of "sharing" to themselves and the online community. We're off the edge of the old legal map.

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Sean Catherall AIA
Integrated Property Services
Bluffdale UT
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Hi All-

I brought this matter up with Houzz, and the following is the their reply

Thank you for bringing these concerns to our attention.  Intellectual property issues are important to us as Houzz cares about and respects the intellectual property rights of others.  We do depend on the architects and other professionals in our community to determine whether they have the right to post content for the purposes permitted by the Houzz Terms of Use. We go beyond the standard practice on the Internet by including this specific language in our upload form to proactively make people aware of our content submission guidelines.

If users have not secured the needed rights, we offer a process where copyright owners can submit requests for the removal of materials that infringe their copyrights.  Specifically, we follow the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and include instructions for the notice and takedown procedures in our Terms of Use.  We certainly will and do remove content from the Houzz site upon receipt of a takedown request meeting the requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  
 
While each person is best positioned to assess risk due to their knowledge of the posted content and source, our view is that the indemnification obligations risk is low given that Houzz is following the notice and takedown procedures required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.   

The Houzz Terms of Use enable us to be flexible given the rapidly developing areas of Internet use, social media, technology platforms, etc.  For example, if our Terms of Use had been written to give us rights to use photos only on the Houzz website, we would not have been able to create the Houzz mobile app or to partner with other sites to generate greater traffic and exposure for the professionals in our community, which is our main goal.

We deeply value our relationships with the members of the professional community. Our focus is on connecting home professionals with homeowners and on bringing more exposure to the professionals in our community. We work hard to maintain the connection between each photo and the professional who posted it to ensure each professional is getting the credit they deserve.

Hope this helps to assuage concerns we all have about uploading images to Houzz.  If not, let's keep the dialogue going to make sure we are all protected when we use a platform such as Houzz.
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Harold "Bud" Dietrich AIA, NCARB
Valrico FL
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Harold,

Thank you for this post.

You all make good points. I for one like Houzz and look at Houzz as the ultimate share ware. My clients are so turned on by Houzz to the point they complain it has replaced TV for them. They enjoy looking at all the good work that is being done around the country. And that is my point. There is so much good work being done around the country very few people see. Houzz has brought it to our laptop. I have 35 binders full of images in my office to help clients work thru their choices. A few 1000 images, (My version Houzz before the internet). Add that to several hundred books.
Now my library is  up to 750,000 images. If choice anxiety was a problem before? What better way to create a need for our help.

I for one have not worried about copy write. I know how hard it is to create instructions to achieve coordinated design details. I do not worry about someone seeing an image and using it to inspire their creation. An idea without execution is is nothing. It is my hope the general public will look at Houzz and seek out a local professional or a distant one for that matter and use their services.

The more that the public can get excited and educated about design the better off we all will be.
As on of the other Housing Communities  has been saying, Architects only do 3% of houses. What If Houzz can move that number even one percent? Lets all share what we are so passionate about and just maybe the world will join us. Even one percent.

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Donald Duffy AIA
Don Duffy Architecture
Charlotte NC
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-06-2012 06:25
From: Harold Dietrich
Subject: Posting on Houzz & Similar Websites

Hi All-

I brought this matter up with Houzz, and the following is the their reply

Thank you for bringing these concerns to our attention.  Intellectual property issues are important to us as Houzz cares about and respects the intellectual property rights of others.  We do depend on the architects and other professionals in our community to determine whether they have the right to post content for the purposes permitted by the Houzz Terms of Use. We go beyond the standard practice on the Internet by including this specific language in our upload form to proactively make people aware of our content submission guidelines.

If users have not secured the needed rights, we offer a process where copyright owners can submit requests for the removal of materials that infringe their copyrights.  Specifically, we follow the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and include instructions for the notice and takedown procedures in our Terms of Use.  We certainly will and do remove content from the Houzz site upon receipt of a takedown request meeting the requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  
 
While each person is best positioned to assess risk due to their knowledge of the posted content and source, our view is that the indemnification obligations risk is low given that Houzz is following the notice and takedown procedures required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.   

The Houzz Terms of Use enable us to be flexible given the rapidly developing areas of Internet use, social media, technology platforms, etc.  For example, if our Terms of Use had been written to give us rights to use photos only on the Houzz website, we would not have been able to create the Houzz mobile app or to partner with other sites to generate greater traffic and exposure for the professionals in our community, which is our main goal.

We deeply value our relationships with the members of the professional community. Our focus is on connecting home professionals with homeowners and on bringing more exposure to the professionals in our community. We work hard to maintain the connection between each photo and the professional who posted it to ensure each professional is getting the credit they deserve.

Hope this helps to assuage concerns we all have about uploading images to Houzz.  If not, let's keep the dialogue going to make sure we are all protected when we use a platform such as Houzz.
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Harold "Bud" Dietrich AIA, NCARB
Valrico FL
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