Client Masters - What would you do?

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Author Message Brian Payne Senior Member Username: brian_payne Post Number: 318 Registered: 01-2014 Posted on Friday, September 20, 2024 - 02:50 pm:    I was recently provided with a full set of partially edited specifications and asked to use them on my next project. This is the client's brand new set of Division 00 and 01 sections to be used on all future projects. The masters are edited versions of commercially available masters. They were downloaded from the internet without payment or apparent knowledge of the copyright holder. They are being given to all AEC firms that are working with them, regardless of the firm legal ability to use them. The client is a very large state run organization. What would you do? Ronald L. Geren, FCSI Distinguished Member, AIA, CCS, CCCA, CSC, SCIP Senior Member Username: specman Post Number: 1643 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Friday, September 20, 2024 - 03:39 pm:    How were they downloaded from the internet? Deltek and RIB do not provide their content that way. Did they take PDF or Word documents from another project provided by a hired consultant who was a legal subscriber? If you subscribe to the system for which the owner-provided masters are based, I would either edit my own sections to follow their masters or use theirs directly. For example, if their masters are based on MasterSpec and you subscribe to MasterSpec, I do not see an issue. However, if they demand you use their masters as-is, and you are not a subscriber, then I would politely tell them that legally you cannot do that, but that you would edit your own sections to conform to the requirements established in their masters. If they refuse and demand that you use their masters, I would insert them as-is (no editing), indicate the sections as "Owner-Provided," and list under your seal or that of the architect those sections you prepared. Ron Geren, FCSI Distinguished Member, AIA, CCS, CCCA, CSC, SCIP William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS, CDT, Certified Master Gardener Senior Member Username: wpegues Post Number: 1005 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Saturday, September 21, 2024 - 12:36 am:    Totally great advice, Ron. I 100% agree. And I absolutely recommend the last option as the only one to really consider. William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS, CDT, SCIP Emeritus ken hercenberg Senior Member Username: khercenberg Post Number: 1645 Registered: 12-2006 Posted on Saturday, September 21, 2024 - 02:13 pm:    Unfortunately this is not as uncommon as we would like to believe. Ron's final option, inclusion in the set while excluding the content from the Architect's Seal Page plus noting in the TOC that the content is provided by Owner seems to be the best solution. I've seen this happen with Federal government agencies that had very specific needs for various items such as waste management, door hardware, firestopping and applied fire protection, and various MEP content. We had to insert all of that as-is and noted it accordingly in our TOC and Seals Pages to avoid liability. Lisa Goodwin Robbins, RA, CCS, LEED ap Senior Member Username: lgoodrob Post Number: 441 Registered: 08-2004 Posted on Sunday, September 22, 2024 - 12:45 pm:    I also have standard Div 01 sections for universities, usually prepared by their Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) departments. I drop them into the project manual as PDFs, with their university headers and footers. They don't update them frequently enough to comply with building codes, sustainability programs, or other university requirements. I don't know how they manage the competing requirements during construction. - Brian Payne Senior Member Username: brian_payne Post Number: 321 Registered: 01-2014 Posted on Tuesday, September 24, 2024 - 02:36 pm:    Ron, they were not obtained legally. Being generous, it was most likely done without full knowledge of the implications. I currently subscribe to MasterSpec, but only till the end of the year. It's a mix of sections that require editing and some that do not. Phil Kabza Senior Member Username: phil_kabza Post Number: 794 Registered: 12-2002 Posted on Thursday, September 26, 2024 - 03:17 pm:    We've just been through this with two Florida public agencies. Why they want to play architect, I do not know. Ten year old MasterSpec masters with no electronic document management, BIM, sustainable design, etc. We just read through them and submitted our own edited versions with our architect client's approval. This sort of thing is making me crochety. When we are forced to use owner Division 01 documents, we often also incorporate our own for Submittals, Quality Requirements, Product Requirements, and Execution, as these sections constitute the practice of architecture and should correspond to the architect's standard of care. Phil Kabza FCSI CCS AIA SpecGuy Specifications Consultants www.SpecGuy.com phil@specguy.com