Copyrights and Ownership
Copyrights
The law states that if a work is made by someone outside the employment of a company, the copyright belongs to the person who did the work. If a company hires an employee to do the work, the work belongs to the company and/or employer. Because our company plays a part in producing the final working drawings whether the contractor or we do the designing, we have a shared interest in the plans. By Law we own the copyright and therefore are the owners of the plan that is drawn. However, in the case that a plan comes to us full scale with very little changes, we will honor the design, and the plan will be used for that contractor only. This does not constitute ownership or transfer of the copyright holder, we are saying that no one else will have access to that plan. All the plans that we draw; both our and the contractors are stored in our computer in a folder under the name of the contractor it was drawn for. These drawing are available at reduced costs as future existing (successive) drawings for that contractor only. See Copyright Transfer below for more options.
Privacy Criteria
The contractor, realtor or customer must sketch the drawings or have a full scale print.
It must be a scaled drawing of each floor including the foundation.
It must show the load and bearing points, as well as beam locations, joist direction and spans.
It must at least show one elevation (should be front) showing how the roof lines will work.
The front elevation showing detail of the facade. I.e. trim size and location, siding type and location, brick detail such as arches or soldier brick, keystones, porch and column details, etc.
When your sketch meets the Privacy Criteria, only you will have access to that plan for future designs. If you own our Professional Builders web site, these plans will only be available on your House Plan library.
Extended License Agreement
The Extended License Agreement is intended for plans purchased from our web site or our office database. When modifications are made, it becomes unique to other house plans and from the original. However, because the plan is a derivative work from the original it remains our plan and copyright and can be used again for further modifications for another customer. Many of you have already been a part of its cycle.
However, by default the plan will not show up on the Internet or be for sale for 6 months. If you want your plan to remain removed from the Internet beyond 6 months, you may choose to purchase an extended license agreement. Its purpose is to allow you exclusive rights for a period of time to build and sell the house.
When a successive plan is purchased (without changes) it will also fall under the protection of the extended license agreement for the remainder of the original agreement for the same plan only. The maximum time to extend the license is 3 years, at which time the plan will be released from the agreement and uploaded to the Internet unless another extended license agreement is purchased.
For Example:
Purchase and have a plan modified the way you like it. Purchase a 3-year extended license agreement on that plan design. Now you can purchase successive licenses to build that house as many times as you like for the next three years without competing against another builder with the same design.*
- Purchase a 1 year extended license agreement for only $250.00
- Purchase a 2 year extended license agreement for only $400.00
- Purchase a 3 year extended license agreement for only $525.00
* While every effort will be taken at our office to keep your unique house design from being duplicated, I will not be responsible for other designers duplicating the plan for a competitor. The red seal on the floor plans was put in place for your and my protection against duplication. I also will not guaranty that another competitor will request modifications to a similar plan and the result be similar. I cannot possibly remember all the houses and how each one is designed.
Copyright Transfer
Many of our unique plans have been registered with the federal government and given a federal copyright number. If the three years the Extended License Agreement offers does not fit your needs or you just want to own the plan you are purchasing you may want to purchase ownership to the copyright. If the plan you are purchasing is unique, (is not a derivative work from one of our existing plans) and, we agree to transfer (sell) the copyright, we will transfer copyright ownership over to you for $2000.00, (price not negotiable). We will also order a federal copyright number in your name for that specific plan.By owning the copyright you are granted all rights to do with the plan as you please. That means when changes are made from the copyrighted plan (creating a derivative new design) we will only charge you for the time it takes to modify the plan. We will not charge you for a Successive Package License, you pay for rework costs only. (The 2 free hours of rework does not apply. Only a successive plan is allowed up to 2 free hours of rework.) The new derivative plan design is not copyrighted and therefore is not exempt from the Successive Package License and modification costs if a future derivative plan is made from the second derivative plan. However, any derivative plan from a copyrighted plan will still remain your unique plan and saved in our database for future use for you only. See Privacy Criteria above.
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by Steve Nyhof Enterprises, Inc.