Is the house design copyrighted?

Good evening,

we are considering building and have now received a first house design from a construction company.

My question:
Is it allowed to take this design from construction company A and have the house built exactly like this by construction company B? The design states "This design is protected by copyright" (by design I mean floor plans, dimensions, and visualized exterior views of the object in this case).

If this is not allowed, how many changes would need to be made to the design from construction company A in order to have the house built by construction company B without any problems?

Thank you very much for your help!

Regards

Tobsen

Hello Tobsen,

why don't you ask A if he will let you have the draft for a fee, that would be easier than risking trouble, right?

Hello Tobsen,

why don't you ask A to let you have the draft for a fee, that would be easier than risking trouble, right?

We have already considered that. However, we won't get any further if A refuses. Even if we were to create completely new floor plans, some similarity would be unavoidable, because the floor plans presented to us already contain a little of our ideas and concepts, as these were taken into account after our conversation with A. That means A's standard floor plan was adjusted in 2-3 places to fit our ideas. However, 2-3 things have not yet been considered, which raises the question whether these changes would be enough to avoid trouble due to copyright infringement.

Well, then just ask Him first

An architect holds copyright to the plans he has designed. However, copyright only applies to a limited extent. Designs for functional buildings that do not require special creative-architectural achievements are excluded from copyright protection. However, additional fee claims may arise for the architect if the client uses his designs multiple times.

I don't quite understand where the problem is in asking [Bauunternehmen A]. Surely it is possible that they refuse to allow the floor plan to be reused, but then you are on the safe side. If you just do it without asking and the company then finds out, you will probably have real problems. So I would rather not risk it and just ask nicely.