CoStar Sues CREXi For Copyright Infringement, Claims It Stole Over 10,000 Images

CoStar Group is bringing another competitor to court over claims it stole the commercial real estate data giant's intellectual property. 

Friday morning, CoStar filed suit in federal court against CREXi, a Los Angeles-based company that operates an online commercial real estate marketplace, claiming "flagrant and widespread theft of CoStar's intellectual property."

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleges six claims including copyright infringement, misappropriation and breach of contract. It seeks a series of damages from CREXi for what it claims was a scheme to build its business using stolen content from CoStar. CREXi did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

"It's a massive copyright infringement," CoStar CEO Andy Florance told Bisnow. "It's actually larger than the copyright infringement we had with Xceligent."

CoStar sued Xceligent, a former competitor, in December 2016 for copyright infringement. Xceligent filed for bankruptcy in December 2017, and CoStar won a judgment in December 2019 that found Xceligent liable for $500M in damages.  Xceligent didn't have the assets to fulfill the entire ruling, and the parties reached a settlement through which its insurers agreed to pay CoStar $10.75M. 

CREXi was founded in 2015 by Michael DeGiorgio, a former executive at Ten-X. It has raised at least $40M in multiple funding rounds, with backers such as Jackson Square Ventures, Mitsubishi Estate Co., Industry Ventures and Prudence Holdings. CoStar bought Ten-X in a $190M deal in June.