Zillow doesn’t even own the photos it threatened to sue a popular blogger over
Zillow caused a whirlwind of controversy yesterday by issuing a fiercely-worded cease-and-desist letter to Kate Wagner, who operates the popular McMansion Hell Tumblr blog. The letter accused Wagner of copyright infringement and walked right up to the line of claiming that using Zillow’s real estate photos for architecture criticism is a crime. Really!
The letter scared Wagner into pulling the blog down entirely and asking Twitter for help — she told us yesterday that McMansion Hell is her livelihood, through Patreon and merchandise sales. Zillow, predictably, took a massive PR hit, because sending nastygrams to popular Tumblr users before talking to them like human beings is always a terrible idea. And there was a lot of discussion…