McGucken v. Newsweek considers the interpretation of explicit copyright licenses. While the Copyright Act does require a writing signed by the owner to transfer ownership of the copyright itself, the copyright license can be permitted use by others with agreement to Platform Policies. This means that others can use the license without formality online if agreeing to Platform Policies. I believe Zillow could try to argue that its terms of service allow them to obtain ownership of the copyright in user-uploaded real-estate photos. However, I don’t believe they could have ownership of the copyright be switched to them. I just believe the case extends the usage of copyrights but not the ownership. I don’t think Zillow would want to obtain ownership of every single photo on the website that is uploaded because of the mass amount of photos on the website.
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