Are you ready for it? Realtor.com hit with Taylor Swift copyright claim

On Monday, photographer Brynn Burns, who was responsible for a portfolio of photos of the estate where Travis Kelce proposed to Taylor Swift, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Missouri against Realtor.com’s parent company Move, Inc. for allegedly using her copyrighted photos without permission. Burns also named the National Association of Realtors (NAR), which the lawsuit said did business as Realtor.com, as a defendant. However, NAR has not been involved with Realtor.com since the sale of Move to News Corp in November 2014. 

In the suit, Burns alleges that in an attempt to capitalize on the excitement surrounding Swift and Kelce’s engagement, Realtor.com published pieces including “impossible to find” photos of the inside of Kelce’s home, using Burns’ images. 

“Defendants knew these photographs belonged to Plaintiff,” the complaint states. “Defendants used and published these photographs without Plaintiff’s permission to drive millions of people to Defendants’ profitable website, Realtor.com, thinking it would be better (and cheaper) to ‘beg forgiveness’ rather than to have sought Plaintiff’s permission.”

According to the complaint, Burns took the photos in 2023 and registered them with the U.S. Copyright Office in January 2024. However, copyright office records show that Burns took the photos in September 2022, prior to Kelce even purchasing the home. 

Burns claims that by publishing her photos, Realtor.com made them useless. 

“Plaintiff is unable to sell or license the work in Jackson County, Missouri because Defendants have made the work available to the world for free via their piracy of the work,” the complaint states. 

Prior to using the photos in the post in question, Realtor.com has licensed Burns’s photos for a little over a year, starting in December 2023. According to Burns, the agreement expired roughly seven months prior to Swift and Kelce’s August 2025 engagement. 

The lawsuit alleges that Realtor.com was able to profit off of using Burns’ images in its posts. 

“The work has attracted potential customers to Defendants’ website, and Defendants have turned some of those persons into paying customers of Defendants’ real estate business,” the complaint states. “Defendants have never paid Plaintiff for the Work, and never sought permission to use the Work.”

Burns is demanding a jury trial and is seeking an unspecified amount of damages. 

In an emailed statement a Realtor.com spokesperson said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

A NAR spokesperson wrote in ane email that NAR is “not involved in any of Move’s editorial or publishing decisions, including those alleged by the plaintiff.”

“NAR does not own, control, or operate the realtor.com website. Move, Inc., a subsidiary of News Corp, operates the realtor.com website under a licensing agreement with NAR, through which NAR licenses the Realtor trademark and the realtor.com URL,” the spokesperson wrote.