Note: Over four years ago, I wrote a series of three guest columns for Inman News arguing the industry should get rid of interbroker compensation. A friend reminded me of that series just today, so I … Read more about The End of MLS as We Know it (Redux) – Part I
IDX “indexing”: What’s so special about franchisors?
NAR’s board of directors adopted a policy at its meeting in New Orleans in November regarding “Display of IDX Information by Real Estate Franchise Organizations.” This post looks at the policy from a … Read more about IDX “indexing”: What’s so special about franchisors?
Issues for MLSs to Consider Before Licensing Their Data to Third Party Vendors
Recently, some major players in the industry, including CoreLogic (formerly First American), Move, Inc., and NAR’s subsidiary RPR, have offered an exchange to MLSs: access to software/interface tools … Read more about Issues for MLSs to Consider Before Licensing Their Data to Third Party Vendors
Why MLSs should pursue their own top-level domain: .MLS
(Disclaimer: My company is doing work on a variety of fronts for MLS Domains Association, the group formed by 15 leading MLSs to seek a new top-level domain, .MLS, in the Internet, for use only by … Read more about Why MLSs should pursue their own top-level domain: .MLS
Pinning Down the RPR Strategic Proposition
4/26/10 SEE IMPORTANT UPDATES BELOW (Based on follow up email we received from RPR today. Look for additions and deletions.)For the last two months, MLS execs and brokers have frequently asked me, … Read more about Pinning Down the RPR Strategic Proposition
Copyrights in facts and copyright licenses: Copyrights in MLS listing content Part II
As I explained in my last post, ownership in the copyrights in the data content in an MLS is 'scattered' in most MLSs: The MLS (or perhaps its MLS vendor or both jointly) owns the copyright in the … Read more about Copyrights in facts and copyright licenses: Copyrights in MLS listing content Part II
MLS exec comments on RPR and its license agreement
(BNL Note: This post comes from the CEO of a Medium/Large MLS. Like all posts of this kind, views expressed here are those of that author, not necessarily of our companies or our clients.) Dale Ross … Read more about MLS exec comments on RPR and its license agreement
Brokers’ rights to control uses of their data and the RPR license agreement
Elizabeth has begun a series of posts about copyrights in MLS content. I believe another in that series is coming out tomorrow.With this post, I want to point out another basis of rights in listing … Read more about Brokers’ rights to control uses of their data and the RPR license agreement
Text of the RPR agreement and ‘public debate’
RPR has so far refused to post the text of the RPR MLS Content License Agreement online. RPR’s president Marty Frame said (in a comment to a previous post about the agreement) that he hoped more of … Read more about Text of the RPR agreement and ‘public debate’
Broker comment on RPR
The following comes from George Percel, a Florida broker and former association/MLS manager. I offered to share it with MLSTesseract readers. (I added the links to his text. Like all posts of this … Read more about Broker comment on RPR
Another checklist for MLSs considering licensing to RPR
John Rees has offered another checklist for MLSs considering licensing data to RPR.John's list of questions takes a decidedly more legal perspective than Mike Audet's (mentioned in yesterday's post). … Read more about Another checklist for MLSs considering licensing to RPR
WAVGroup white paper on RPR is a must-read for MLSs
Update 2/1: Some folks using Internet Explorer had problems with the links in this post earlier today. WAVGroup fixed the problem on its server. They should work now.If your MLS is considering … Read more about WAVGroup white paper on RPR is a must-read for MLSs