A new pencil (copyright law/author/CAD/elevations)
A new pencil (copyright law/author/CAD/elevations)
Li Dongtao
Description: A CAD (Computer-aided Design) process is only a tool used by people to create works.
The case.
Beauty is a blast.
This is a case about BEAUTY.
The plaintiff is a construction company.
The defendant is a computer engineer.
In 2005, the plaintiff and the defendant inked a contract.
According to the contract, the defendant was commissioned to create elevations of the blueprints of the future buildings of the plaintiff in a month. The copyright of the final elevations was entitled to the plaintiff.
Creating elevations means adding some colors on the black-and-white blueprints so as to show the three-dimensional beauty of the future buildings.
A CAD (Computer-aided Design) process was involved when the defendant created the elevations.
Afterwards, the defendant finished his job in time and got his remuneration.
A year later, a book entitled Elevations of Splendid Buildings was published, the author was the defendant.
The plaintiff’s elevations were collected in the book.
The plaintiff sued the defendant for copyright infringement.
The defendant argued that the copyright infringement was not established because a CAD process was involved in creating the elevations, so the elevations were machine-made products, not works.
Analysis
The copyright infringement is established.
Blueprints of buildings and their descriptions, made for the purpose of actual construction, are purely black-and-white. People who want to make copies of published blueprints will make little money. The CAD process, however, which adds color and shows the three-dimensional beauty of a future building, will add new monetary and aesthetic value for the person who makes copies of the final elevations.
Making profits from selling the books was precisely the purpose of the defendant in this case.
Even if CAD provides help in creating elevations, the defendant couldn’t prove the elevations were created automatically by CAD.
So, CAD is still a tool, a new pencil, used by people because people control the computer.
According to the contract, the copyright is entitled to the plaintiff, without the plaintiff’s permission, the defendant couldn’t use the work in this way.
In short, it’s true beauty is a blast, it is also true beauty is created by a human being, not a CAD.
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