Designworks Homes, Inc., et al. v. Columbia House of Brokers Realty, Inc., dba House of Brokers, Inc., dba Jackie Bulgin & Associates, et al.

Whether the Eighth Circuit erred in holding that it was fair for real-estate agents to reverse engineer a buildable floorplan of a house; place no restrictions on the online marketing and advertising distribution of the floorplan so as to limit its distribution to persons actually interested in purchasing the house; and left the floorplan online and refused requests to take it down for years after the home was no longer for sale, thereby exposing proprietary home-design plans online to the detriment to the architects’ copyrights and the homeowners’ privacy.

Whether the Eighth Circuit erred on the first fair-use factor, the purpose and character of the use, 17 U.S.C. § 107(1), where the Eighth Circuit held that merely putting information online was transformative because it conveyed “information;” when it ignored this Court’s Campbell caveat about marketing and advertising uses; where it discredited the homeowners’ privacy and safety interests at stake when their home is no longer for sale by its owner; and where it refused to consider the failure to give attribution or credit to the copyright holders.

Whether the Eighth Circuit erred on the fourth factor, the effect upon potential market for or value of the copyrighted work, 17 U.S.C. § 107(4).