CRMLS Data Control: MLS Data Copyright & Agent Rights

Debate over CRMLS data control. MLS copyright, agent compensation, and usage rights are discussed. The EULA grants CRMLS broad license over agent content, raising concerns about agent rights and data usage.

Goal Realty Advisors CEO Eric Johnson, in a discuss Reffkin’s message, called CRMLS’ agreement “one more instance of MLSs quietly moving control away from the people who actually create the worth and serve their clients.”

Copyright Office & MLS Data

Previously, the Copyright Workplace thought about MLS data to be “just a directory site, implying the details could not be copyrighted,” Carter claimed. “In response, CRMLS and various other MLSs interacted to educate the Copyright Office on the imaginative aspects within MLS listings”– such as the distinct content in each information area, and how everything comes together.

CRMLS’s EULA: Brokerage Benefits

“CRMLS’s EULA does not back taking control of listings far from brokers or agents or improperly making money from them,” Carter said. “Instead, its goal is to give advantages back to the brokerage firm area for the listing material supplied.”

“For years, we had actually seen grey market activity by people who have access to the MLS offering its data to those who didn’t, which meant agents and brokers weren’t being compensated for the important information they offered,” Carter claimed.

Data Ownership & MLS Usage

“If every agent were to have specific ownership of their listing, then every use the data outside the MLS (think AVMs or IDX feeds) would certainly call for approval from all the thousands of CRMLS brokers. That’s unfeasible,” he added.

“By submitting YOUR payment and YOUR WEB CONTENT to the MLS, YOU approve to CRMLS an irreversible, unlimited, transferable, continuous, royalty-free, non-exclusive license (with right to sublicense) to use, shop, duplicate, assemble, screen, disperse and to make acquired jobs from YOUR payment and YOUR CONTENT.”

“They were not able to do their work without authorizing away all civil liberties to their material as accessibility to the MLS was obstructed until they clicked ‘concur,'” Reffkin claimed in his post. “Does this appear right to you?”