Copyright in Design

Copyright
Copyright in Design
In Australia, copyright law is made up of the Copyright Act 1968.
Any drawing or sketch, whether produced by hand or CAD software, is considered an artistic
work.
Computer renderings, as well as virtual tours, will be protected by copyright as an artistic
work.
Who owns copyright?
The owner of copyright must be a legal entity – that is, an individual, a company, or a
government.
Architectural/Landscape partnerships may create copyright material that is owned jointly or
individually.
The construction of a building is a three-dimensional reproduction of a design and is a form
of copying.
Under most standard-form, client-architect agreements, the architect retains the copyright in
the design.
*Note – If an agreement is generated by a client, this may not be the case.
Where the architect/landscape architect retains the copyright in a design, the client is given a
licence in relation to the design they have commissioned.
This licence allows the client to:
• build the design once only and only on the site for which the design was prepared
• maintain the building in question throughout its useful life
• redevelop, refurbish or renovate the building and sell the building as necessary or
desired
This right may be qualified – based on whether the client has paid due fees to the
architect/landscape architect.
It is not necessary to identify the copyright holder on drawings and other documents, but
doing so will make the issue clear. The easiest way is either with the symbol © or ‘Copyright’
followed by the name of the copyright holder and the year in which the drawing or document
was created.
Clauses can be developed to cover common situations such as:
• What happens to the copyright material (the plans contained in the Development
Approval Permit) in the event of the site being sold to another party?
• What happens if a client modifies the plans in a manner that is not acceptable to the
architect/landscape architect?
It is strongly recommended that all aspects of copyright and the commercial obligations of he
client are clearly articulated in the client- architect/landscape architect agreement.
Copyright license example clauses:
Schematic Design (SD) Upon full payment of the SD fee the architect will grant the client a
non-exclusive license for the work produced as a part of that phase. The license does not
permit a third party to develop further, copy or reproduce the SD material to another phase or
for any approval without the express permission of the architect.
Design Development (DD) Upon full payment of the DD fee the architect will grant the client
a non-exclusive license for the work produced as a part of that phase. The license does not
permit a third party to develop further, copy or reproduce the DD material to another phase or
for any approval without the express permission of the architect.
Construction Documentation (CD) Upon full payment of the CD fee the architect will grant
the client non-exclusive license for the work produced as a part of that phase for the
purposes of reproducing the material by constructing the building or structure in a single
instance on the project site.
Are ideas copyright?
Copyright exists in original expression in a physical form, not in ideas.
It is therefore possible for an architect to be influenced by another architect’s design ideas
without infringing copyright in the other architect’s work.
There is sometimes a fine line between being influenced or inspired by another architect’s
work, and copying it. In Ancher Mortlock Murray and Woolley Pty Ltd v Hooker Homes Pty
Ltd (1971) Justice Street said:
An architect may legitimately inspect an original plan or house and then, having absorbed the
architectural concept and appreciated the architectural style represented therein, return to his
own drawing board and apply that concept and style to an original plan prepared by him and
in due course to a house built to that plan.
There is a dividing line separating such a legitimate process from an inspection followed by
a later copying of a substantial part of the physical object inspected, even though the copying
be from memory; the latter exercise does infringe.
In many instances it will be difficult to state categorically whether the dividing line has been
crossed.

The post Copyright in Design appeared first on My Assignment Online.