 | |
Type of site | Subsidiary of CoStar Group |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1995 |
| Headquarters | |
| Key people | Andrew Florence, CEO |
| Industry | Technology |
| URL | www |
LoopNet is an online marketplace for commercial property, primarily providing commercial property listings for sale and for lease in the United States and is currently owned by commercial property data company CoStar Group.
LoopNet was founded in 1995 by Dennis DeAndre. Working alongside engineer Steve Midgley, the two built LoopNet into the internet's largest commercial real estate listing service. LoopNet underwent three rounds of private venture capital financing in 1997 (Indo Suez), 1998 (Trinity Capital & Partners) [1] and $20 million in 1999 from fourT5 real estate brokers. [2]
LoopNet was an early venture in Internet-based user-created content. As early as October 1996 virtually all of its commercial property listings were being entered by its users directly. Over time, LoopNet added the capability to import listings in an automated manner. [ citation needed ]
In 2001, the company merged with PropertyFirst.com. [3]
In June 2006, the company became a public company via an initial public offering. [4] At that time, the company had 360,000 commercial properties for sale or lease. [5]
LoopNet acquired BizBuySell (2004), [6] CityFeet (2007), [7] REApps (2008), [8] Land & Farm/Lands of America (2008) and Bizquest (2010). [9]
In April 2012, CoStar Group acquired LoopNet for approximately $860 million in cash and stock. [10]
In 2014, the company settled a trademark infringement lawsuit that it brought against Dotloop. [11]
In 2020, to address rapid changes occurring in the COVID-19 commercial real estate market, the company added significant virtual tour capabilities. [12]
LoopNet connects tenants and buyers with owners over an open and free network. [13] As of April 2023, LoopNet had more than 12 million unique monthly visitors.[ citation needed ]
LoopNet's business model involves selling memberships to its site to those that lease or sell Commercial Real Estate. Paid or Premium Membership confers additional benefits with a free model existing but only showing those listings to groups with CoStar membership. [14]
In CoStar Group, Inc. v. LoopNet, Inc. (2006), in which Loopnet prevailed, it was determined that Loopnet, as an operator of a website, was no different from Netcom, then an internet service provider, and was not responsible for copyright infringements by its users. This ruling established precedent for copyright liability protection for many websites. It followed the Religious Technology Center v. Netcom case (better known as Scientology vs. the Internet). LoopNet demonstrated that it policed any user violations after the fact. The court did not require the company to stop future violations before they occur. Such a ruling could have effectively shut down LoopNet's website as well as those of many application service providers. CoStar unsuccessfully argued that LoopNet was an active party to the violations and thereby guilty of copyright infringement.
Warez is a common computing and broader cultural term referring to pirated software that is distributed via the Internet. Warez is used most commonly as a noun, a plural form of ware, and is intended to be pronounced like the word wares. The circumvention of copy protection (cracking) is an essential step in generating warez, and based on this common mechanism, the software-focused definition has been extended to include other copyright-protected materials, including movies and games. The global array of warez groups has been referred to as "The Scene", deriving from its earlier description as "the warez scene". Distribution and trade of copyrighted works without payment of fees or royalties generally violates national and international copyright laws and agreements. The term warez covers supported as well as unsupported (abandonware) items, and legal prohibitions governing creation and distribution of warez cover both profit-driven and "enthusiast" generators and distributors of such items.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) is an American trade association for those who work in the real estate industry. It has over 1.5 million members, making it the largest trade association in the United States including NAR's institutes, societies, and councils, involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries. The organization holds a U.S. trademark over the term "Realtor". NAR also functions as a self-regulatory organization for real estate brokerage. The organization is headquartered in Chicago.
In a series of legal disputes between SCO Group and Linux vendors and users, SCO alleged that its license agreements with IBM meant that source code IBM wrote and donated to be incorporated into Linux was added in violation of SCO's contractual rights. Members of the Linux community disagreed with SCO's claims; IBM, Novell, and Red Hat filed claims against SCO.
Brookfield Properties is a North American subsidiary of commercial real estate company Brookfield Property Partners, which itself is a subsidiary of alternative asset management company Brookfield Asset Management. It is responsible for the property management of the company's real estate portfolio, which includes facilities in the office, multi-family residential, retail, hospitality, and logistics industries.
Secondary liability, or indirect infringement, arises when a party materially contributes to, facilitates, induces, or is otherwise responsible for directly infringing acts carried out by another party. The US has statutorily codified secondary liability rules for trademarks and patents, but for matters relating to copyright, this has solely been a product of case law developments. In other words, courts, rather than Congress, have been the primary developers of theories and policies concerning secondary liability.
NETCOM On-Line Communication Services, Inc. was an Internet service provider headquartered in San Jose, California.
Cushman & Wakefield Inc. is an American global commercial real estate services firm. The company's corporate headquarters is located in Chicago, Illinois.
Domania (Domania.com) was a website founded by Steve Kropper and Fran Rivkin that debuted in April 2000 as a consumer-facing real estate portal that featured a slate of tools including Home Price Check, an Internet search engine that allowed users to search through 28 million comparables dating back to 1987 at no cost. It became one of the top 10 real estate sites by traffic, garnering over 500,000 visits a month.
Zillow Group, Inc., or simply Zillow, is an American tech real-estate marketplace company that was founded in 2006 by Rich Barton, Zillow's current CEO, and Lloyd Frink, former Microsoft executives and founders of Microsoft spin-off Expedia; Spencer Rascoff, a co-founder of Hotwire.com; David Beitel, Zillow's current chief technology officer; and Kristin Acker, Zillow's current technology leadership advisor.
Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. provides a multiple listing service in the United States. As of mid-July 2010, it served 51,171 real estate professionals in Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area including Maryland, Washington DC, Northern Virginia, and parts of West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc. is a 1992 legal case where the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concluded that there was no copyright infringement made by the Game Genie, a video game accessory that could alter the output of games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The court determined that Galoob's Game Genie did not violate Nintendo's exclusive right to make derivative works of their games, because the Game Genie did not create a new permanent work. The court also found that the alterations produced by the Game Genie qualified as non-commercial fair use, and none of the alterations were supplanting demand for Nintendo's games.
Copyright infringement is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to make derivative works. The copyright holder is typically the work's creator, or a publisher or other business to whom copyright has been assigned. Copyright holders routinely invoke legal and technological measures to prevent and penalize copyright infringement.
Field v. Google, Inc., 412 F.Supp. 2d 1106 is a case where Google Inc. successfully defended a lawsuit for copyright infringement. Field argued that Google infringed his exclusive right to reproduce his copyrighted works when it "cached" his website and made a copy of it available on its search engine. Google raised multiple defenses: fair use, implied license, estoppel, and Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbor protection. The court granted Google's motion for summary judgment and denied Field's motion for summary judgment.
Religious Technology Center v. Netcom On-Line Communication Services, Inc., 907 F. Supp. 1361, is a U.S. district court case about whether the operator of a computer bulletin board service ("BBS") and Internet access provider that allows that BBS to reach the Internet should be liable for copyright infringement committed by a subscriber of the BBS. The plaintiff Religious Technology Center ("RTC") argued that defendant Netcom was directly, contributorily, and vicariously liable for copyright infringement. Netcom moved for summary judgment, disputing RTC's claims and raising a First Amendment argument and a fair use defense. The district court of the Northern District of California concluded that RTC's claims of direct and vicarious infringement failed, but genuine issues of fact precluded summary judgment on contributory liability and fair use.
CoStar Group, Inc. v. LoopNet, Inc., 373 F.3d 544, is a United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decision about whether LoopNet should be held directly liable for CoStar Group’s copyrighted photographs posted by LoopNet’s subscribers on LoopNet’s website. The majority of the court ruled that since LoopNet was an Internet service provider ("ISP") that automatically and passively stored material at the direction of users, LoopNet did not copy the material in violation of the Copyright Act. The majority of the court also held that the screening process by a LoopNet employee before the images were stored and displayed did not alter the passivity of LoopNet. Justice Gregory dissented, stating that LoopNet had engaged in active, volitional conduct because of its screening process.
File sharing in the United Kingdom relates to the distribution of digital media in that country. In 2010, there were over 18.3 million households connected to the Internet in the United Kingdom, with 63% of these having a broadband connection. There are also many public Internet access points such as public libraries and Internet cafes.
Realtor.com is a real estate listings website operated by the News Corp subsidiary Move, Inc. and based in Santa Clara, California. It is the second most visited real estate listings website in the United States as of 2021, with over 100 million monthly active users.
NeighborCity was a residential real estate information and service company that rated real-estate agents in the United States, offering a way for buyers and sellers of homes to compare and evaluate agents. It was based in San Francisco.
Fox Broadcasting Co. v. Dish Network, LLC is a copyright case in which the United States District Court for the Central District of California, by granting partial summary judgment, denied most parts of the copyright claims presented by Fox Broadcasting Company (Fox) against Dish Network (Dish) for its service, a DVR-like device that allowed users to record programming that could be accessed later through any Internet-connected device. The service offered by Dish also allowed users to record any or all Fox's prime-time programs and to automatically skips commercials (AutoHop).
CoStar Group, Inc. is a Washington, DC-based provider of information, analytics, and marketing services to the commercial property industry in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Spain. Founded in 1987 by Andrew C. Florance, the company has grown to include the online database CoStar and many online marketplaces, including Apartments.com, Homes.com, LoopNet, Lands of America, and BizBuySell.
