I just got the newest Woodcraft magazine. There is an article in it about building the New Yankee Workshop Adirondack chair. Only problem is they give no credit to Norm or the New Yankee Workshop. I wonder if Russ Morash will sic his lawyers on them.
Dick Durbin
I must be missing some inside joke or something. Just read the article, your average run of the mill, generic, seen one you seen them all Adirondack chair. The words New Yankee Workshop don't appear.
Keith
This is a specific design that the New Yankee Workshop developed and published several years ago. I would have thought that, since the article in Woodcraft didn't even go to the trouble to make some subtle changes to avoid infringing on the copyright, the originator of the design might have some recourse.
I strongly suspect that the design was not copyrighted.
Copyrighting is not a formal process, but one will have to prove they had that design first.
I think that you are laboring under a false assumption. You cannot patent or copyright a design like that.
Let us use the example of house plans. If I have some house plans designed by an architect, I cannot reprint them without permission. I can build the house without the architects permission. Even if I build a house EXACTLY like his plans show, there is nothing that the architect can do to stop me.
If the architect has some plans for a house, his drawings are protected. The design is not.
Same with a chair. If anyone has any rights to the design, it would be Mr. Adirondack, anyway.
We recently had a builder (builder 1) sued for building a home for which the home owners provided the plans. The problem was that the homeowners basically stole the plan from another builder (builder 2) who had the plan designed for his company. It took several months and several lawyers and was finally settled out of court. Builder 1 had to pay builder 2 and agree not to build that plan in the future.
Mike O.
Wow! I hope I never accidentally build that house! I could be sued for building the only protected house design in the country!
Settled out of court is the significant phrase in your reply. If the plans were stolen, that is an offense and, plus, you can sue for anything. It may or may not be worth it to fight it in court. Settling with an agreement not to build sounds pretty cheap.
Think about this; Who owns the design for the one room cabin? Do you need to contact them if you want to build one?
You cannot own the design of a home. You can only own the drawings.
Did NYW develop a specific design, or did the moderately adapt a design from the generic Adirondack chair that has been around for generations? If the made adaptations, did the one in Woodcraft exactly follow that in NYW? If that's the case, did the one in NYW...basic Adirondack chair design was around in the '20s, I know. Over the years, changes have been made in seat and back curvature, fastening and arm rest design, but the basic design remains the same, and in the public domain. Much depends on the quality of NYW's changes and how many of those changes Woodcraft might have reproduced.
Somewhere on here, someone says you can copyright the drawings, but not the design. That is nonsense. What would be the point in copyrighting the drawings if the design shown on them wasn't also protected?
Check this out:
"Architectural Works
An original design of a building embodied in any tangible medium of expression, including a building, architectural plans, or drawings, is subject to copyright protection as an architectural work. The work includes the overall form as well as the arrangement and composition of spaces and elements in the design but does not include individual standard features or design elements that are functionally required.
The term building means structures that are habitable by humans and intended to be both permanent and stationary, such as houses and office buildings, and other permanent and stationary structures designed for human occupancy, including but not limited to churches, museums, gazebos, and garden pavilions.
For details on how to register architecural works, please see Circular
41, Copyright Claims in Architectural Works."
In the USA, it might be.
This might be why the builder mentioned in another message settled out of court.
From:
Architectural Works
An original design of a building embodied in any tangible medium of expression, including a building, architectural plans, or drawings, is subject to copyright protection as an architectural work. The work includes the overall form as well as the arrangement and composition of spaces and elements in the design but does not include individual standard features or design elements that are functionally required.
The term building means structures that are habitable by humans and intended to be both permanent and stationary, such as houses and office buildings, and other permanent and stationary structures designed for human occupancy, including but not limited to churches, museums, gazebos, and garden pavilions.
For details on how to register architecural works, please see Circular
41, Copyright Claims in Architectural Works.
I designed the two story house. If you are living in a two story house I will be suing you, unless you send me a royalty check every year for $200.
Please make checks payable to Mr. CASH.
Finding the keyboard operational Maxwell Lol entered:
This isn't true. You need to produce a work "substantially different" You can't change just a little. See the George Harrison "My Sweet Lord" vs. Phil Spector " He's so fine" lawsuit. Bob
--
-- Coffee worth staying up for - NY Times
The Other Funk wrote: :>
: This isn't true. You need to produce a work "substantially different" You : can't change just a little. See the George Harrison "My Sweet Lord" vs. Phil : Spector " He's so fine" lawsuit.
Or, if you're Swingman, Phil Ramone!
-- Andy Barss
I agree that settlement was the significant phrase. No lawyer will recommend settlement unless you are about to lose.
Mike O.
No, if you are about to lose, the opposing lawyer won't settle. If you can settle however and not pay all the legal costs, court costs, etc., especially when the settlement isn't all that much to begin with, that's a lot better for everyone. There are plenty of cases where it costs more to litigate a case than you can potentially make back from it.
In which case the _other_ lawyer won't settle. It needs both sides to accept they may lose for an out-of-court to work.
In any case, copyright only applies to something written (or drawn) on paper or other directly readable media. The plans could be copyrighted, and so could not be used (or copied and the copies used). New plans would have to be created, which could use large parts of the original design.
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