01-30-2014, 10:02 PM
Copyright issues are money makers for lawyers. In a broad expression anything produced on a piece of paper, even using industry standard / acceptable details/drawings can be copyrighted by the person who put them together, re-arranged/re-ordered them and/or re-sized them and put new style of titles on them.
The matter is faced by practicing people all the time. Say, half way of the job, or at some point your client decides to work with another engineering company.
Your copyright is what you produced on the paper. Somebody else can re-produce the same thing on their computer , re-arranges them changes text fonts, title names and tweaks the order of the items with new verbiage. And adds some new even unnecessary things.
Here you have another copyright.
We as engineers, have to respect somebody else's work the same way we want ours to be respected.
When we are in these situations we have to always check with the original engineer, get written permission to re-use their work. Sometimes we find out that the new client of ours did not honor their agreement or they have a law-suit going on.
So, we have to be careful, and judge the situation with fairness.
Always check with the governmental authority to see how they want to handle the situation in hand. And have this in writing.
If you are using somebody else's work by copying exactly and charging for it , it is not fair use
I think suing for copyright goes a long way and the one with a deeper pocket and more lawyers win.
Bottom line is FAIR USE
Regards
The matter is faced by practicing people all the time. Say, half way of the job, or at some point your client decides to work with another engineering company.
Your copyright is what you produced on the paper. Somebody else can re-produce the same thing on their computer , re-arranges them changes text fonts, title names and tweaks the order of the items with new verbiage. And adds some new even unnecessary things.
Here you have another copyright.
We as engineers, have to respect somebody else's work the same way we want ours to be respected.
When we are in these situations we have to always check with the original engineer, get written permission to re-use their work. Sometimes we find out that the new client of ours did not honor their agreement or they have a law-suit going on.
So, we have to be careful, and judge the situation with fairness.
Always check with the governmental authority to see how they want to handle the situation in hand. And have this in writing.
If you are using somebody else's work by copying exactly and charging for it , it is not fair use
I think suing for copyright goes a long way and the one with a deeper pocket and more lawyers win.
Bottom line is FAIR USE
Regards