zipForm®, your free member benefit, now contains four new member benefits for 2013. The C.A.R. Sample Letter Library, the California Department of Real Estate Forms library, zipFormMLS-Connect®, and zipConsult™ web conferencing. And it’s getting even better with zipFormPlus® which doesn’t require Java and will be available later this year!
We appreciate that you are enjoying your free member benefits and using C.A.R.’s forms in your transactions. Through an exclusive agreement with zipLogix, the creator of zipForm®, C.A.R members are offered features and tools that give members valuable business tools. Other software companies charge for many of the products and services that C.A.R. members receive for free as part of their member benefits, including e-signatures via zipLogix Digital Ink® and document storage through zipVault® and web conferencing with zipConsult™. Many software companies do not offer these products or services at all.
zipForm® is the only electronic forms filling software program for which you have permission to complete C.A.R. standard forms. C.A.R.’s standard forms are protected under federal copyright laws and, as the copyright owner, C.A.R. retains certain exclusive rights in the forms, including the exclusive right to reproduce (by photocopy or computerized formats), distribute, and display the forms. C.A.R.’s permission is required prior to any reproduction, distribution or display of the forms. C.A.R. permits members to reproduce and distribute its forms through zipForm® as long as zipForm® is used for actual real estate transactions. However, exporting a blank form, or a partially completed form with nominal characters such as “…” or “____” from zipForm® is a violation of C.A.R.’s copyright and your end user license agreement. Therefore, you may not export a blank or partially completed form into another software program to overlay or add additional text to complete the form.
C.A.R. understands that, for various reasons, you may want to share completed C.A.R. forms or use completed C.A.R. forms with another software program such as DocuSign. C.A.R. permits you to export from zipForm® a completed and locked PDF form, filled out for a particular client, and move it into other software systems to maintain that file, obtain signatures on it, and share it as a read-only format with others. DocuSign is an example of a software product that does not violate the zipForm® end user license agreement or C.A.R.’s copyright in the forms because it allows for a read-only C.A.R. form. In this type of software program, the C.A.R. forms are completed with the applicable transaction information in zipForm® before it is uploaded into the other software program.
C.A.R. expends a great amount of time and effort as well as financial expense to provide members with the most accurate and up-to-date real estate forms for use in your real estate transactions. By removing C.A.R.’s forms that are not in locked PDF format from zipForm® and uploading them to other software programs, it may allow non-members access to the forms without paying their fair share or allows infringers to unjustly profit from copying and reselling C.A.R.’s forms to non-members. Any unauthorized use of C.A.R.’s forms will serve to deprive you and other dues-paying members from receiving your full membership entitlements.
Please help C.A.R keep the benefits that you, our valued member, have paid for by abiding by C.A.R.’s copyright policy and the zipForm® end user license agreement. Thank you for your continued membership in C.A.R. and your use of C.A.R.’s products and services.
View a copy of the zipForm® end user license agreement outlining the rules of using zipForm®. If you have any questions about the use of C.A.R. Forms or zipForm®, please contact us at cs@car.org.