Photo Rights and Copyright (DMCA) Policy

Effective date: [DATE] Operated by: [STOA LEGAL NAME], a [STATE] [ENTITY TYPE] ("Stoa", "we", "us")

1. Why this policy exists

People who use our apps upload and import photos, logos and other creative work. Most of that work is owned by someone: a photographer, a brokerage, a designer, or the person pictured. This policy explains what rights you need before you give us that material, what we do with it, and how a copyright owner can ask us to take something down.

This policy is part of our Terms of Service. If they conflict, the Terms control, except that the notice, counter-notice and repeat infringer procedures in sections 7 to 9 follow 17 U.S.C. §512 and control on those points.

2. Who usually owns listing photos

Under U.S. copyright law, the person who takes a photo owns its copyright unless they were an employee acting within the scope of their job or they signed a written transfer (17 U.S.C. §201). Most real estate photos are taken by independent photographers. That usually means:

• The photographer owns the copyright.
• The brokerage or agent has a license from the photographer, and the license may be limited (for example, to MLS use, to the listing period, or to still images only).
• The MLS receives a license from its participants to display and distribute listing content, and MLS rules limit how other participants and third-party vendors can use it.
• A photo appearing on Zillow, Realtor.com, Redfin, a brokerage site or an MLS portal does not mean anyone may reuse it.

A walkthrough video, reel, carousel or post made from a photo is a new version of that photo. Copyright law treats it as a derivative work, and making one needs the owner's permission (17 U.S.C. §106(2)). Some photographer licenses cover "marketing the listing" broadly; others cover stills only. Check yours.

3. What you must have before you upload or import

By uploading, importing, or confirming the rights statement in the app, you promise that for every photo, logo, headshot and other item you give us:

1. You own it, or you have a written license or permission from the owner that is broad enough to let you, and us on your behalf, store it, crop and resize it, turn it into video and social images using automated and AI tools, publish it on a listing page, and let you download and post the results.
2. Your use follows the rules of your brokerage, your MLS, and any website you imported it from.
3. For headshots and any photo showing an identifiable person, you have that person's permission to use their image in advertising (see section 11).
4. You have the seller's permission where your listing agreement or law requires it.
5. You will stop using the material, and delete it from our service, if your permission ends (for example, when a listing expires and your license was limited to the listing period).

If you are not sure, do not upload it. Ask the photographer. A one-line email that says "you may use these photos for video and social media marketing of this listing" is usually enough.

4. How ListLit uses your photos

When you ask us to, we:

• store your photos in our cloud storage (Cloudflare R2);
• send reduced-size copies to an image-analysis model (Cloudflare Workers AI) to pick usable shots, choose crops and check generated scenes;
• send selected photos and a camera-motion instruction to our video-generation provider (Higgsfield, which runs Kling models) to create short AI camera-motion clips;
• crop, resize and combine photos in your browser into videos, posts, Stories, carousels and flyers with your branding;
• publish the photos, video and your branding on a public listing page only if you choose to publish one.

We do not use your photos to advertise ListLit or Stoa without your separate written permission. We do not use your photos to train our own AI models. Our providers' own practices are described in our Privacy Policy.

When you import from a listing link, ListLit fetches that page and its photos on your instruction, only from a short list of supported sites, and follows each site's robots.txt rules. Importing is a convenience, not a license. Many listing portals' own terms forbid copying their photos into other apps, and New York's broker advertising rule says photos posted on a broker's website may not be reused without the copyright holder's written permission (19 NYCRR 175.25(b)(2)(iii)). The import tool cannot tell whether you have permission. Your rights confirmation is what we rely on.

5. Watermarks, photographer credits and AI output

Copyright management information ("CMI") includes the photographer's name, a copyright notice, a watermark that identifies the owner, and similar credit information. Removing or altering it, or distributing copies knowing it was removed, can violate 17 U.S.C. §1202 when done knowingly and with reason to know it will help hide an infringement.

Our position:

• Do not upload photos with someone else's watermark or credit unless you have the right to use them. A watermark usually means the photos are proofs or belong to someone else. Some MLSs watermark photos to mark their own compilation copyright; those photos are licensed for MLS use, not for reuse elsewhere.
• We do not offer a watermark-removal feature and will not add one.
• AI video can accidentally blur, distort or drop a watermark or credit that sits in the photo, because the model repaints pixels as the camera moves, and cropping for vertical video can cut it off. This is a side effect of generation, not a feature. If a photo's license requires a visible credit, preserve it as the license requires. Do not use an AI result that removes a required credit; a caption is only sufficient if the license permits it.

6. AI disclosure

ListLit labels AI output. Scenes made with AI camera motion carry an "AI-generated motion" label burned into the video, the end card says how many scenes use AI motion, suggested captions include a disclosure line, and the public listing page carries a disclosure. Do not remove or crop out these labels. Some states require disclosure of digitally altered real estate images (for example, California Business and Professions Code §10140.8, effective January 1, 2026), and MLS rules may too. Complying with those rules for your own advertising is your responsibility as the licensee.

7. Reporting copyright infringement (takedown notices)

If you believe material on our service infringes your copyright, send a written notice to our designated agent (section 10). To be effective under 17 U.S.C. §512(c)(3), your notice must include all of the following:

1. Your physical or electronic signature (a typed full name works), as the copyright owner or a person authorized to act for the owner.
2. Identification of the copyrighted work you claim is infringed (for example, the photos and the listing address, or a link to your portfolio). If several works are covered by one notice, a representative list.
3. Identification of the material you claim is infringing and information reasonably sufficient for us to find it. The best way is the full URL of the listing page (for example https://[DOMAIN]/l/...) or a screenshot showing the file.
4. Your name, postal address, telephone number and email address.
5. A statement that you have a good faith belief that the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
6. A statement that the information in the notice is accurate, and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the owner or authorized to act on the owner's behalf.

Please consider whether the use could be licensed or a fair use before you send a notice. Under 17 U.S.C. §512(f), a person who knowingly and materially misrepresents that material is infringing can be liable for damages, including costs and attorneys' fees.

A notice that does not substantially comply may not trigger removal, but if it includes items 2, 3 and 4 we will try to contact you to fix it.

What we do when we get a valid notice. We act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material, normally within [2] business days. We tell the user who posted it and give them a copy of the notice (we may remove your personal contact details other than your name and email if you ask). We record the notice for our repeat infringer policy.

8. Counter-notices

If your material was removed and you believe it was a mistake or a misidentification (for example, you hold a license from the photographer), you can send a counter-notice to our designated agent. Under 17 U.S.C. §512(g)(3), it must include:

1. Your physical or electronic signature.
2. Identification of the material that was removed and where it appeared before removal.
3. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that you have a good faith belief the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification.
4. Your name, address and telephone number, and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for the judicial district where your address is (or, if you are outside the United States, any judicial district in which we may be found), and that you will accept service of process from the person who sent the original notice or their agent.

When we receive a valid counter-notice, we promptly send a copy to the person who sent the original notice and tell them we will restore the material in 10 business days. We restore it not less than 10 and not more than 14 business days after we receive the counter-notice, unless our designated agent first receives notice that the complaining party has filed a court action seeking to restrain the user from the infringing activity.

We are not required to restore material, and we may decline to restore it if it violates our Terms for another reason.

9. Repeat infringers

We terminate, in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of users who are repeat infringers (17 U.S.C. §512(i)(1)(A)). Our rule:

• Each valid takedown notice that is not successfully countered counts as one strike against the account that posted the material.
• Three strikes within any 12-month period ends the account. We may end an account sooner, including after one strike, for clear or willful infringement (for example, uploading a watermarked proof gallery the user plainly did not pay for, or re-uploading material we removed).
• A strike is removed if a counter-notice is not answered by a lawsuit, if the complaining party withdraws the notice, or if we conclude the notice was mistaken.
• A person whose account was ended for repeat infringement may not open a new account. Because accounts are tied to a Google account identifier that we keep after deletion for abuse prevention (see the Privacy Policy), we can enforce this.
• Paid access ends with the account. Refunds for prepaid time follow the Terms.

10. Designated agent

Our designated agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement, registered with the U.S. Copyright Office's DMCA Designated Agent Directory:

Service provider: [STOA LEGAL NAME], [PHYSICAL STREET ADDRESS of the company, not a P.O. box] Also known as: ListLit, ListLit by Stoa [add each app name the public would search for] Designated agent: [AGENT NAME or "Copyright Agent"], [STOA LEGAL NAME] Agent mailing address: [STREET ADDRESS or P.O. BOX] (37 C.F.R. §201.38(b) allows a P.O. box for the agent's address) [CITY, STATE ZIP] Phone: [PHONE] Email: [COPYRIGHT EMAIL, e.g. copyright@DOMAIN] Copyright Office registration number: [DMCA-XXXXXXX]

Please send notices by email for the fastest response. Only copyright notices go to this address. Other requests go to [SUPPORT EMAIL] and are not answered from the copyright address.

11. Headshots, likeness and other people

Many states protect a person's name and likeness from use in advertising without consent. In New York, Civil Rights Law §§50 and 51 require written consent to use a living person's name, portrait or picture for advertising or trade. By uploading a headshot or a photo showing a person, you confirm that it is you, or that you have written consent from the person shown. Do not upload photos of occupants, sellers, children or neighbors who have not agreed. Our AI tools are instructed not to add people to property scenes; if you see a person who was not in your photo, do not publish that scene and tell us.

12. Trademarks and brokerage branding

Brokerage names and logos belong to their owners. Use only the branding your brokerage allows you to use, and follow its brand standards. Trademark complaints go to [SUPPORT EMAIL] with the mark, the registration number if any, and the URL of the material.

13. Changes

We may update this policy. We will post the new version with a new effective date, and if a change materially affects you, we will tell you in the app or by email before it applies.