Lets say for the sake of argument that a relative of mine has a house with a floorplan that I like; a tract house by a national builder. Then let's say that I contacted the builder about buying blueprints for said house (to build on my own lot in a rural area) and the builder said "we don't sell blueprints and we don't build on buyers' lots".
Then lets say that I photocopy said floorplan and pay an architect to draw up building plans. Would I be in violation of copyright?
What about if I moved the location of the entryway light 1 inch, it would technically be different at that point.
Why not just show the plans to the architect and tell him WHY you like them and WHAT you like about them. I might also suggest that you do some serious thinking and have a few comments about what you don't like about them. Then let him come up with something you might like even better.
I doubt if you are going to find many floor plans that are so unique that there are not a number of very similar plans in use around the country. What will be different are construction details that may not be apparent from a floor plan anyway.
Don't expect the architect to offer some really cheap price, because he will still need to do basically the same work as doing one from scratch.
Hint. How do you think your relative is going to feel if you end up with a home just like theirs? Some people would consider it a compliment and others would not be happy at all.
Yes it is a copyright violation. You are making a derivitive and that is the right of the copyright owner. Will anyone notice? That is another issue all together.
Copying the plans is a black and white violation. Taking the plans to an architect and saying "I like this, make me something that I'd like using this layout" will put you into some gray to light gray areas. Take a good look at the plans. There is probably something you'd do different that will move you to a very white area now.
If the plans were copied in detail there is a violation, but to make a set of plans that has the living room on the left, the kitchen in the corner and a bathroom above it can have thousands of variations in construction detail, materials, plumbing and electrical that there would be clearly no violation.
Would I be in violation of copyright? Yes. But hmm, there is probably a million of those houses built, sooo who is going to notice?
And even if your builder does, how he can prove that this is they design.
For most builders floorplans you can find very very similar. I have not seen unique track home design.
If your architect any good, he can make very similar plan in no time.
Most people don't come to architects saying i want you to draw house with 4 bedrooms, etc. They go and ask for a house similiar to some floor plan, and ask to address they concerns, make some changes.
I recall seeing a television segment about a year ago, possibly on CNBC, about copyright owners filing suit against a builder. It seems an architect's staff member was simply driving around somewhere and saw "their" house being built somewhere else. The piece also mentioned other similar instances.
A licensed architect, if he is aware that they are plans from a McBuilder or otherwise copyrighted, will NOT take the work as a straight copy job. The downside if anyone notices is simply too high. He loses his AIA stamp, it costs him bigtime. In many (most?) areas, residential construction does not require an expen$ive architect- a freelance designer can do the work as well, at a much lower price point. (How do I know?- my father has been in that field for close to 50 years, and always has more work than he can handle.) But while you can copyright the working blueprints and spec sheets, there is no way to copyright a basic room layout, and many houses end up being very similar, simply because that is the best and cheapest way to lay a house out.
I agree with the other poster- hire a designer or architect, show him that plan, and say you like it. He'll still spend a couple hours with you anyway, over several sessions, defining and fine-tuning your requirements. He will also want to see the lot, since a lot of design, especially the engineering parts, is site-dependent. An experienced designer can do a cookie-cutter house in their sleep. The most expensive part will be the material take-offs and any variations needed to meet local conditions and codes. If you want him to stay involved during construction, to handle QC and any needed changes (there are always some), that will, of course, cost more.
Nonsense. You can't copyright architectural designs. The plans themselves, in some respects can be copyrighted, but anyone can draw up new plans for the exact same structure.
If defy you to show me a house with a copyright symbol on it.
Thanks to all for the response. The house is my sisters and she would not care if a copy of her house existed several miles away. There is actually more than one copy in her own neighborhood - nature of tract housing I guess.
To address the issue of just finding a similarly laid out plan and buy the blueprints, I probably could eventually. I've just been looking for a couple of weeks and every plan I see seems to be almost-but-not-quite as good as her plan.
Another reason I liked the idea of building from the original blueprints is that I'll be building it myself (with a little help from my friends as they say) and as a novice builder, I like the idea of being able to have a completed "model" of the house for reference.
The real issue comes up when you submit the plans to plan review at your building department. They are looking for the engineering stamps. I doubt you will save a dime if your new architect does the engineering he deems necessary to put his stamp on someone else's plan. You are really paying for that stamp. There is nothing magic about the floor plan itself, it is the engineering on the plan you pay for.
BTW if you are buildiong in a place that doesn't have plan review, permits etc, I doubt anyone would ever know you had McMansion Inc's plan. Just be sure you have the redlined version with all the errors fixed ;-)
Tract house builders don't always have plans that are right.
I got into this when I builkt my pool. I had all of the standard engineering documents from a commercial pool company but since their name was not on the permit I could not submit their copyrighted plan. They would let me hand copy the plan and submit that as a homeowner drawn plan if I paid a few extra bucks for engineering review . I just had to be sure to faithfully cite all the ASTM references, building code sections and such in my note panels. You also have to be sure you get all the details of the engineered parts of the drawing. They don't give a rats ass about cosmetic details. They only care that the code issues are dealt with. In a McMansion mastered house plan, the interior details and actual floor llan may not even look like the house you build. "Plan review" is only looking at the structural, mechanical and electrical engineering. They may have some money issues with details (extra money per outlet or something) but one mastered plan will cover a lot of houses with a lot of options.
He is "photocopying" the floorplan. I don't know of a copy machine that will fit a house in it so obviously he is talking about photocopying the plans which can indeed be copyrighted. If he has someone work from that photocopied plan it is a copyright infringement.
But the plans are. So you could sketch the layout, photograph the details tha appeal to you, and take the result to an architect and say "I want something like this:", and probably be ok.
But if you copy the actual blueprints, that's likely illegal.
Cripes! You are contemplating hiring your own personal architect to draw you up custom blueprints so you can build your own custom home yourself, but you want the end result to be a carbon copy of a tract house with dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of copies within just a few miles of your house.
What's wrong with you?
Build something unique, something you like, something with character. If your dream house reall is a tract house, just buy one from the developper -- you can't possibly beat the price, and its your dream house afterall so that is the best of both for you.
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