i'm currently working with realtors on watercolor house portraits for closing gifts. however, i've been asked on several occasions to take elevation renderings and floor plans and make them more presentable. for example using the elevation plans to create a realistic depiction of the home or taking the floor plans and simplifying them to the basic lines and details.
my question is, is this legal to do, or is this considered altering a copyrighted work?
Plainly speaking, altering somebody else's original work, assuming not for the intention of satire, is generally not legal unless the original artist has explicitly stated otherwise.
Your client may own the images for their own purposes based on their agreement with the other designer/artist, but your client has no legal right to even give you access to those files.
Of course this may depend on your area of the world. Legal rights and moral rights are related but separate concepts of law.
I'm not a lawyer but I would advise you to dig deeper or not take this job. Your client could just as easily take your work to somebody else without your consent, screwing you.
midlander
Mar 2, 20 10:36 pm
it's not really possible to answer this question without knowing more information. most importantly - who owns the copyright. it also depends how 'similar' your work is to the original. if you're only using the drawings as references to create a different image, there might be no violation at all.
regardless, copyright violations are a civil offense (in the US) meaning the police aren't going to arrest you over this. at most, the copyright holder could sue for damages, which almost certainly wouldn't be worth anyone's time in this situation where the money at stake is probably very little.
whoever drew the elevations and plans owned the copyright - but they could license or sell it to the either the seller or real estate agency for promotional use.
single family homes aren't always designed by an architect, and the person who made these drawings may or may not have been the designer. in commercial real estate it's normal that agencies produce their own drawings in-house for marketing properties, and if this is part of a developer-built project that's probably the case here. if it's a resale, you'll have to ask where the drawings came from.
supervillain
Mar 3, 20 9:47 am
bowling_ball - thank you
midlander - thank you very much for this info! this was what i was looking for.
i'm currently working with realtors on watercolor house portraits for closing gifts. however, i've been asked on several occasions to take elevation renderings and floor plans and make them more presentable. for example using the elevation plans to create a realistic depiction of the home or taking the floor plans and simplifying them to the basic lines and details.
my question is, is this legal to do, or is this considered altering a copyrighted work?
https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/
Plainly speaking, altering somebody else's original work, assuming not for the intention of satire, is generally not legal unless the original artist has explicitly stated otherwise.
Your client may own the images for their own purposes based on their agreement with the other designer/artist, but your client has no legal right to even give you access to those files.
Of course this may depend on your area of the world. Legal rights and moral rights are related but separate concepts of law.
I'm not a lawyer but I would advise you to dig deeper or not take this job. Your client could just as easily take your work to somebody else without your consent, screwing you.
it's not really possible to answer this question without knowing more information. most importantly - who owns the copyright. it also depends how 'similar' your work is to the original. if you're only using the drawings as references to create a different image, there might be no violation at all.
regardless, copyright violations are a civil offense (in the US) meaning the police aren't going to arrest you over this. at most, the copyright holder could sue for damages, which almost certainly wouldn't be worth anyone's time in this situation where the money at stake is probably very little.
whoever drew the elevations and plans owned the copyright - but they could license or sell it to the either the seller or real estate agency for promotional use.
single family homes aren't always designed by an architect, and the person who made these drawings may or may not have been the designer. in commercial real estate it's normal that agencies produce their own drawings in-house for marketing properties, and if this is part of a developer-built project that's probably the case here. if it's a resale, you'll have to ask where the drawings came from.
bowling_ball - thank you
midlander - thank you very much for this info! this was what i was looking for.