Layout for Offer / Penalty

Hello everyone,

I am currently facing the following problem. We have obtained several carport offers. Among them was a sketch that matched our ideas. Out of curiosity, I copied the carport layout so that no company or other data were visible and sent it to a Polish carport manufacturer for a quote. On the same day, I received an email from the German company regarding a penalty for forwarding copyrighted drawings to others. As it happens, the German company apparently sources their carports from the Polish company. The latter immediately notified their German partner upon receiving the quote request.
Is a penalty possible even if no company data was visible? Has anyone ever experienced such a case?

Thanks in advance

Well, I'm no expert on that. But removing names etc. probably doesn't matter for the fact that you have unlawfully shared intellectual property. The question in the end is probably more about what damage has been caused to the company?

Copyright is not circumvented by removing all references to the author. The layout itself is still protected by copyright.

If you don’t find a lawyer (für Urheberrecht) here, no one will be able to offer you legal advice here.

Hello; first of all; legal advice is not allowed here like this, I think a conversation with a lawyer makes sense. Your move was not exactly the proper English way, but starting such a fuss right away is also somewhat ridiculous of the company. I would be interested to know which company this is, such places belong on the blacklist. And they send you a penalty payment by email? Sorry, what is that supposed to be? Emails are unfortunately considered spam by default nowadays, except for a few exceptions, such a thing is not legally relevant in any way. It could also be a forged email, payment demands by email almost daily end up in my spam filters. They would have to use their own lawyer for that, who would then hand it to you nicely by post. With some effort that is possible, and it gets expensive quickly. A key point is certainly what kind of "sketch" you sent. If those were dimensioned construction plans, you should probably pay up if they want no more than 100-200€. Then your position is really weak. If it was a rough view from the top left with the indication of 4 m wide and 6 m long, I consider it very doubtful that they have a real chance of enforcing anything. Do you find the sketches/pictures on their homepage online? Then the situation would be much more relaxed. (As long as you didn’t say you created them yourself) Best regards, Andreas

My predecessors are right when they say that it is a copyright infringement if you pass on drawings or construction data belonging to others to third parties in order to get an offer from that third party using this data. This is also not legal advice, and you can read about it if you deal a bit with copyright law.

Your move was not exactly the fine English way, but starting such a fuss right away is also somewhat silly on the part of the company.

In the digital age, where people like to copy something from the WWW and then spread it somewhere else, and where the media talk about copyright infringements every day, there is no longer any judge who dismisses these offenses as minor matters. They are crimes, just like theft or fraud. This is also not legal advice

However, I agree with you:

And they send you a penalty payment by email?

That cannot have been it.

You should wait for a formal letter from the company or their lawyer. However, it can hurt a bit if the lawyer is good. That would then have been your carport.

Let this be a lesson to you that such things quite often backfire. You can be glad if no complaint is filed, but companies usually have no time for that—unless you engage in a dispute and do not pay. But this is not legal advice either.