Who owns the copyright after you pay an architect for drawings or plans?—The Times
Consultant Robert Stevenson has written a column in The Times, advising on the rights of clients in retaining architectural drawings. The column clarifies the obligations and limitations regarding the use of commissioned drawings, including the potential for architects to charge fees for retrieval and the permissible scope of use under the original license.
Your architect may have sent you an appointment letter incorporating Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) standard terms, which would set out the scope of your licence. Or if there were no such written terms, then the scope of your licence to use the drawings would be implied from the nature of the transaction.
The full article is available to read online at The Times.
Robert Stevenson is in the dispute resolution team. Through his work with design professionals he has developed a significant intellectual property practice centred on the construction industry. He delivers regular RIBA CPD accredited talks on the subject. He also lectures to the School of Contract Management.
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