| Author |
Message |
David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI
Senior Member
Username: David_axt
Post Number: 173
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 09, 2003 - 08:36 pm: |    |
We have a consultant that insists on putting "(c) The So-And-So Corporation" in the footer of all the specifications they prepare. The Owner wants the consultant to remove this copyright notice since no other consultant has their copyright notice on their specs. We (the architect) certainly don't.
The consultant refuses to remove their copyright notice. I don't really care and actually like the fact that I can tell who prepared that section. (See previous thread on "Why not identify the author of the spec?")
I have seen some other architectural drawings where there is a copyright notice.
Do we have to have a copyright notice on our specs and drawings? |
Dennis Hall (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 07:54 am: | |
No, but to be consistant with our drawing set, that is a good idea. |
Doug Frank FCSI CCS
Senior Member
Username: Doug_frank_ccs
Post Number: 46
Registered: 06-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 08:09 am: | |
We include a copyright notice at the bottom of the Project Manual cover/title page only. There's already enough going on in the footer area of each page (section name and number; document issue title; dates; revision numbers; etc). |
Richard Howard, AIA CSI CCS
Intermediate Member
Username: Rick_howard
Post Number: 5
Registered: 07-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 09:27 am: | |
You need to examine your Owner-Architect Agreement to see if it has anything to say about the architect's rights to ownership of services. As instruments of services, drawings and written documents prepared by the architect would then be his legal property.
One firm I worked for placed a copyright notice on drawings and on the inside title page of project manuals. When an owner wanted to have us transfer the rights to them, we gave them a proposal that retained limited right for us to use derivations of our creative work and asked for monetary compensation. No one ever took us up on the offer.
AIA's Architect's Handbook (13th Ed.) has a great explanation of copyright issues written by Dale Ellickson, Esq, FAIA (Pages 316-317).
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William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS
Senior Member
Username: Wpegues
Post Number: 223
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, September 11, 2003 - 02:24 am: | |
David,
I would say that right off the top, the group putting it in their header/footer on every page does not understand copyright requirements. You need to (and should only) post it once for a given work. This is typically on what in publishing is referred to as 'fly sheets' in the front of a book or publication. Where you see that some post a copyright for the entire work of a project manual, this covers it under that Architect. The consultant whose work appears in the project manual in no way looses his rights to his work that is included, and it does not imply that because the architect copyrighted the work that the architect has any rights to use the consultants work elsewhere (meaning other projects).
If you had a particularly paranoid consultant that wanted to assure that his work was copyrighted directly to him, then if you wished you could consider using the kind of notation where on the copyright notation fly sheet it would say that the project manual was copyrighted, and that separate sections (listing them) were separately copyrighted to that specific consultant. You see that sometimes when you see some essays or compilations of short stories that appear in a single publication where the individual copyright holders for the works are listed. They are never repeated internally on the actual essay or short story itself - they just appear on the fly sheet where the copyright notice is posted.
They have been doing copyright notices in literature and reference books for many many years longer than architects and engineers thought they ought to start doing it, and the conventions are well established. Putting it on every page - that just tells me someone really doesn't understand coypright at all.
William |
John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA
Senior Member
Username: Bunzick
Post Number: 136
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, September 11, 2003 - 09:05 am: | |
William (and others): We have not really addressed copyright issues, and have not been consistent with our sealing either. You make reference to a "fly sheet" which contains copyrights. What else goes on that page? I assume that you have a separate seals page too. How do you set that up? (If you or another has an example they'd be willing to share, that would terrific.) |
Dennis Hall (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, September 11, 2003 - 06:03 pm: | |
Per your request, below is the certification and seals page for a small exterior project. I am the only design professional. My professional and corporate seals are placed on the page and my original signature and date placed over the professional seal.
On most projects where we have engineers, their names and seals are also located here and their discipline.
00006
CERTIFICATION AND SEALS
I hereby certify that the Project Drawings and the Project Manual entitled "Sixth & Pine: Townhouses On The Park – Exterior Renovations" bearing Project Number 0221 and dated December 16, 2002 were prepared by me or under my direct supervision, and that I am a duly registered Architect under the Laws of the State of North Carolina and hereby affix my Professional Seal.
As to Architectural:
Hall Architects, Inc.
(Professional Seal) (Corporate Seal)
Dennis J. Hall, FCSI, AIA
END OF DOCUMENT
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William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS
Senior Member
Username: Wpegues
Post Number: 224
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, September 20, 2003 - 04:30 pm: | |
John,
"Flysheet" is a book binding term - those are the pages at the front of the page that includes the title page, dedication page, publishers information page. The copyright notice appears on one of those - it used to be on the title page but lately trends see it on what is the publishers page which lists the various editions, printings type face and test registers on it...even if the copyright is to the author and not the publisher.
There is no suggested format for what goes on what pages on the 'flysheets' of a project manual, or how you divide up the information.
I have a series of divider flysheets that appear in a different color paper from the body of the book that provide the separations of divisions and front end information throughout the project manual. One of those is called "Introductory Information" and that is the first page you see, and that is all that it says. That would be my first flysheet. Following that is the 2 or 3 page document that has one page that states the name of the project, the date, which vol this is in a multi-volume project. If I were to bother to post a copyright notice, it would be on this page, but I don't bother.
2nd and 3rd pages (when required) are the owner's name, architect and various consultants that are part of the project manual package, and their addresses, and this is what is typically used as the seals page(s).
The whole thing with copyright notice, some ought to just read about how it really works. Most have no idea of what the issue is about.
William |
C. R. Mudgeon
Senior Member
Username: C_r_mudgeon
Post Number: 9
Registered: 08-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, October 02, 2003 - 05:35 pm: | |
What's all the commotion about? Architecture has always involved legal plagiarism. How many architects have created something really new and unique? Even the cutting-edge Gehry is stuck in a rut, trying to convince everyone that stepping on the same tin can in a different way is real architecture. Guess he never heard about that form and function thing.
The architects that get the press and set the trends are like fashion designers, anyway. Hemlines up, hemlines down. Crowns are in, crowns are out. This year we'll use stripes. This year we'll use copper cladding. And like all of the clothing knock-offs that follow the latest from Gucci, architectural designers rush to add that crown or use that copper cladding.
On the other hand, why don't we reuse good designs that work? Wouldn't an owner be better served and happier with a building that looked like another one that actually worked, than with a trend-setting design that leaks and sets the average person to muttering "those @*#$&* architects!"?
As far as specifications go, it seems that if you follow the MOP your specifications will have to look like those written by someone else who is following the same rules. So what is there to copyright? |
Kenneth C. Crocco
Junior Member
Username: Kcrocco
Post Number: 3
Registered: 04-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 08, 2003 - 04:10 pm: | |
How does one copyright a specification for standard steel doors and frames edited from MasterSpec for a project that has exterior doors and interior doors, no windows in doors, no louvers, fire and non fire rated doors, etc, etc.
I certainly did not originate that written material, (even though I did time on the masterspec review committee).
Also, if we read our licensing laws, i would bet 99 and 44/100ths percent of our specs do not meet the licensing laws in terms of the reponsibility for preparing and stamping. (anyone old enough to recognize that percentage? hyperbole to be sure, but you get the idea.)
What does junior member mean? i haven't been called that for quite some time. |
Ralph Liebing
Senior Member
Username: Rliebing
Post Number: 38
Registered: 02-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003 - 06:47 am: | |
Ivory soap, made by Proctor and Gamble-- 99.44% pure; it floats!!!
If you know that you simply cannot be a Junior Member, in my estimation. |
Tracy Van Niel
Senior Member
Username: Tracy_van_niel
Post Number: 47
Registered: 04-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003 - 09:13 am: | |
I think the junior versus senior member is related to how many "posts" you have made. |
Ronald L. Geren, RA, CSI, CCS, CCCA
Senior Member
Username: Specman
Post Number: 16
Registered: 03-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003 - 12:50 pm: | |
Ken:
I'm not a legal expert, but I think the copyright for the specification applies to that particular project only. I haven't read Arcom's license agreement in detail, but I'm sure there's some language that gives its licensed (emphasis on "licensed") users limited rights. They would have to, otherwise they wouldn't have any customers.
As for licensing laws, the specifications are not edited, so therefore, the architect is "preparing" the specifications, even though most of the content was researched and prepared by another entity. Also critical is the appropriateness of the specification. Anybody can write a specification for interior gypsum wallboard, but applying it as exterior sheathing would be extremely inappropriate; the architect has to make those types of decisions. |
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