RPR revamps MLS licensing agreement

Realtors Property Resource LLC has revised the template it's using as a starting point in discussions with multiple listing services to license their active and sold listings data, and posted the document online.

While there's still no provision to share revenue with MLSs, the new proposed licensing agreement defines the analytic products, including "Realtor valuation model" property valuations, that RPR plans to sell to third parties in order to generate revenue.

The template also explicitly states that all members of participating MLSs will have access to the national property database RPR is building.

The proposed licensing agreements the National Association of Realtors' subsidiary began sending out in January to further its goal of building a national property database for NAR members had been criticized by some for a lack of specificity.

The agreement offered to one MLS, attorney Brian Larson blogged after obtaining a copy, would have allowed "RPR to create almost any kind of product with the listing data" without promising "to do anything for the MLS or its subscribers" in return, he said.

RPR President Marty Frame said at the time that the one-year agreements were written with the intention of giving RPR flexibility to provide additional services to participants.

In his own post Monday on the RPR company blog, Frame thanked Larson for providing critics of the original licensing agreement "a place to speak behind the screen."

"While Brian may have been disappointed by the document, he has approached both the legal and business issues in good faith and with equanimity, and gave us a lot to chew on," Frame wrote. ...CONTINUED

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