The good news is that I was dismissed out of the lawsuit. The not-so-good news is that many brokers may face the same kind of legal exposure, and they may have no idea.

Of all things, it was a copyright violation lawsuit. When you are broker of an office with close to two hundred agents, you expect a lawsuit now and then. But a copyright violation? That’s not only unexpected; for me it was ironic.

I am mentioning this, because there’s something here for brokers and agents to think about. What happened was that an agent had cut and pasted material from a newspaper article onto his website. He did not seek or receive permission to do so. He was sued by the holder of the copyright. The fact that he had done this before he joined our company helped me to get out of the suit. (NAR members interested in the details of the suit can find a discussion on the NAR website) But the lesson is easy to see. Agents and brokers need to be careful about what they put on their web sites and blogs.

The topic of web exposure was one subject of discussion at a risk-management break-out session held at the recent annual convention (aka “family reunion”) of Keller Williams Realty International. The session was well attended by brokers, agents, and company attorneys. They all had a lot to say, and a fair amount of it had to do with agent use of the internet and the World Wide Web.

Attention focused on four things in particular: email, social media sites, blogs, and web sites. One theme was common: You need to be careful about what you say.

It is awfully easy to become careless when emailing or posting on a social media site. In the heat of competition agents are sometimes liable to say things that may fall within a range from anti-trust violations to outright slander. The emails that may go back and forth relative to transactions can easily stray into breaches of agency duty (such as confidentiality), fair housing violations, and, these days, even lender fraud.

People can too easily say things in emails that they would not want others, beyond the recipient, to see; and they forget that these messages don’t go away. They are recoverable and they may be subject to subpoena.

Many companies have written policies regarding the email use of company computers. Many don’t. All should. It should be clear to agents that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy when they use company computers and email systems.

The establishment and use of agent web sites is probably the technological area most fraught with potential for trouble. Back in the dark ages, when the only places agents were liable to run their own ads was through print media – newspapers, home magazines, and the yellow pages – it was fairly easy for a broker to have some idea of the kinds of ads they were running and what they were saying. It wasn’t 100%, but it was generally good enough.

How things have changed. In many companies almost every agent is liable to have multiple web sites. It would be more than a full time job for someone to try to keep track of what is going on with all the agents’ individual and/or team web-based advertising.

So what is a broker to do? One thing for sure: establish and promulgate some clear rules and guidelines for agent advertising. Those might even include some kind of warning about copyright violations. Another suggestion: do spot checks for compliance. Google your agents and see what they are doing. It’s an assignment that could liven up the duties of the person at the front desk. And it just might help to save the broker some money. Even getting dismissed from a lawsuit costs money.

Published: March 15, 2011

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Bob Hunt is a former director of the National Association of Realtors and is author of the recently published book, "Real Estate the Ethical Way." A graduate of Princeton with a master's degree from UCLA in philosophy, Hunt has served as a U.S. Marine, Realtor association president in South Orange County, and director of the California Association of Realtors, and is an award-winning Realtor. Contact Bob at .