Photographer Sues Realtor.com for Utilizing Her Actual Property Images of Taylor Swift Engagement Location

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement images broke Instagram information in August and set into movement new pictures developments. A photographer alleges that, capitalizing on the excitement, Realtor.com stole her images of Kelce’s mansion, the place he proposed to Swift.

Kansas City actual property photographer Brynn Burns took images of the mansion in 2022 or 2023, earlier than Kelce purchased the house and nicely earlier than he proposed to Swift on the property. Burns alleges in a brand new lawsuit that, Realtor.com, capitalizing on the swirl of consideration surrounding Swift and Kelce’s engagement and the property, used her images of the property with out her permission, Housing Wire reports.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Missouri in opposition to Realtor.com’s father or mother firm, Move, Inc., and the National Association of Realtors (NAR), who Burns claims did enterprise as Realtor.com. As Housing Wire notes, NAR has not had something to do with Realtor.com since Move, Inc. was offered to News Corp in 2014.

In any occasion, Burns alleges that Realtor.com didn’t have permission to submit her images from inside Kelce’s dwelling.

“Defendants knew these photographs belonged to the Plaintiff. Defendants used and published these photographs without Plaintiff’s permission to drive millions of people to Defendants’ profitable website, Realtor.com, thinking it would be better (and cheaper) to ‘beg forgiveness’ rather than to have sought Plaintiff’s permission,” the lawsuit alleges.

Further, Burns alleges that by publishing her images, Realtor.com successfully destroyed their business worth by making “the work available to the world for free via their piracy of the work.”

Realtor.com had licensed the images starting in December 2023, though Burns claims the settlement expired greater than half a 12 months earlier than Realtor.com used the photographs in tales surrounding Swift and Kelce’s engagement.

Realtor.com has eliminated Burns’ photos from articles like this one, however archived variations of the story clearly present seven photos that had been credited to Brynn Burns, together with on August 28, when the fervor surrounding the engagement was at its peak. Although it’s not possible to know exactly when the allegedly stolen photos had been eliminated, archived knowledge signifies they had been eliminated someday after October 1.

Photographer Brynn Burns is demanding a jury trial and is looking for unspecified damages.

A Realtor.com spokesperson advised Housing Wire that it doesn’t touch upon pending litigation. Meanwhile, a NAR spokesperson famous that NAR will not be concerned in Move’s editorial choices and doesn’t personal, management, or function the Realtor.com web site.

Image credit: Header photograph licensed by way of Depositphotos.