Copyright on engineering drawings.

[GrahamMc]

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[Steph Dale]

Graham,
Thanks for that, a useful summary.
Steph

 

[adrian]

Don't worry about copyright - there is none on engineering drawings, they are not Useful Articles under the law

Just to follow up on this issue of "useful articles" - I was only aware of this from a posting on another website I follow. Unfortunately most of the discussion on "useful articles" is based on copyright in the USA. I'm struggling to find anything similar for the UK.

It cropped up because DC comics have claimed copyright on the Batmobile - and bizarrely have won the latest round. As I understand it, it means that you can claim copyright on artistic impression (including engineering drawings) however you cannot claim copyright on the design of a useful article. Rather than make a hash of the explanation I will quote a comment from the article.

"Copyright in a work that portrays a useful article extends only to the artistic expression of the author of the pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work. It does not extend to the design of the article that is portrayed. For example, a drawing or photograph of an automobile or a dress design may be copyrighted, but that does not give the artist or photographer the exclusive right to make automobiles or dresses of the same design."

(http://www.copyright.gov/register/va-useful.html)

I think the only thing that the NRM could possible claim for copyright is if they claim typographical arrangement which would give them 25 years from the first date of publication.

However I'll add the stipulation that I'm not a lawyer so I have no qualification to claim black is white, so as Graham says "it's a bit of a minefield".

 

[ZiderHead]

Likewise, not a lawyer but know enough to get by.

First thing: there is no copyright office or register like the IPO which handles patents and trademarks. A court will decide if copyright has been breached, and because of our wonderful (I mean that) precedent based legal system theres nowhere to look it up.

www.copyrightservice.co.uk are a commercial operation so will cast their net as wide as they can get away with. While we're at it lets take a look at their main offices:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5...4!1sTIR32CAqnshmkABNqOBxGg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Quite.

Engineering drawings may look nice to us but they are certainly not artistic works, they are merely a representation of an original work - the design itself (which may be patented.)

Copyright can be transferred, but it still expires at the same time. Say the NRM had purchased an original watercolour landscape painting by Gresley and the title. The copyright would still expire in 2011.

Of course none of this really matters because the drawings posted on WT fall under fair dealing (much narrower than the US fair use but still fine.) Now if it was reproduction for commercial use ... buy a lawyer lunch would be my advice

 

[AJC]

I should add that - from my experience as a historian in the day job - it is usual for archives, of whatever kind to claim copyright, and thus charge a licensing fee, on images of documents in their possession, regardless of age. I'm not sure on what basis that is, but I do know that infringing the British Library's copyright in publication is a very bad idea. That said, this instance is very much fair use.

Adam

 

[ZiderHead]

'4 Artistic works.

This is the key point: until 1988 copyright extended to almost any original graphic work including engineering drawings - the design of a utilitarian object was protected via the drawings.

One intention of the CDPA was to make sure that copyright only extended to artistic works (covered in Part I which you quoted.) Engineering drawings fall under Part III Design Right. This is far more sensible - the protection is for the design itself, not the drawings which represent it.

 

[ZiderHead]

Graham I agree a need to be careful, and I hope that anyone reading this noted that I am not a lawyer, so should not take anything I say as legal advice.

From Art and Copyright (2nd Ed), Simon Stokes, 2012, ISBN 9781849461627:

"The protection of utilitarian or mass-produced items by copyright was an important and controversial feature of UK copyright law until the CDPA. In particular, as copyright protected engineering drawings of product designs as graphic works, this copyright would protect against indirect copying of the drawings through copying the products in question. The effect of the CDPA was to exclude the vast majority of industrial designs from copyright protection. This was done by effectively removing copyright protection from designs other than for artistic works and typefaces ... In short, the intention behind the CDPA was to leave copyright as the preserve of of what might properly called artistic works."

Simon Stokes happens to be a partner at our solicitors, so we could probably get a definitive answer for a couple hundred quid if we have a whip round

 

[Trebor54]

Ziderhead.



'51 Design documents and models.

(1)It is not an infringement of any copyright in a design document

“design document” means any record of a design, whether in the form of a drawing, a written description, a photograph, data stored in a computer or otherwise.[/QUOTE

In this context, is a GA a design document or merely a record of the assembly of several`designs`?

 

[ZiderHead]

Hehe

My understanding: Prior to 1988 the design of a utilitarian object had no protection apart from the copyright covering the drawing (unless Patented.) Post CDPA the design itself has protection and the drawing representing it generally* does not because it is not considered an artistic work, and therefore is not covered under Part II.

* generally because the drawing may contain elements which do have protection. Take a GA drawing of a loco. It may have the railway company's logo design on the side of the loco. The logo may not be merely functional and may be considered as artistic work. It may also be a trademark. It may also use an original typeface. All 3 aspects offer protection, but only for the logo, not the rest of the drawing.

 

[richard carr]

I really don't understand why people on this forum make such a fuss about copyright, any copying for personal research is fair use, and even if it isn't who is going to do anything about, no one as the copyright holder will need to prove their economic loss and that is always nil or so tiny as not to be worth the bother.

How the NRM can claim copyright on drawings that are more than 70 years old is beyond me, I doubt they have a legitimate copyright on newer drawings too.


Richard

 

[ZiderHead]

Well claiming copyright on things that are no longer protected may be unlawful, but it is not illegal ...

Agreed on the fair dealing, the reason Ive bothered with this is so people don't feel they have to add a legal boilerplate to everything they post (its rife in the other place.) If I post a photo I credit the photographer and link to their site because its polite, not because I have a legal obligation

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

A tricky subject. Logically any copyright on pre-nationalisation (including their predecessors) NRM railway engineering drawings will be with the Crown as the assets passed to the state on nationalisation. Following that argument and as subjects of the Crown they're ours .

 

[BrushType4]

If I post a photo I credit the photographer and link to their site because its polite, not because I have a legal obligation

Totally agree.

Though to Richard Carrs point, the copyright owner does not need to prove any kind of loss financial or otherwise but that a breach of copyright has occurred. A slightly different hurdle though the reality of the breach would look at financial loss to determine financial compensation.

The positive part of the law if you can call it that, is that it is very difficult and therefore very expensive to prove either way so usually the copyright owner is just a grumpy copyright owner if they feel wronged (I can think of at least one railway photographer that is grumpy).

 

[Bill Bedford]

How the NRM can claim copyright on drawings that are more than 70 years old is beyond me, I doubt they have a legitimate copyright on newer drawings too.

Simple -- Engineering drawings were invariably produced as part of the draughtmen's employment so the corporate rules apply, i.e. that copyright extends for 70 years after the drawing were first made available to the public this would be in the mid 70s. For most of these drawings that was not until after the NRM was formed and OPC started to sell copies, this was in the mid 70s. This may not apply to diagrams, since it is known that British Railways sold copies of pages of various stock diagram books from about 1950.

 

[pete waterman]

Now here's a very complicated subject indeed. If we are talking about ex BR drawings then this is very easy as they are all in the public domain put there as part of the privatisation deal. The BR drawings all went to Serco who are, allowed to charge a copying fee and this is the same for the NRM there is no copyright on them. All the stuff before privatisation is in the PD. This does not cover the class's built after that. Anyone holding a copy of the old BR drawings can charge you for copying them and that's all.

 

[JimG]

I would imagine one of the complications do with drawings held by the NRM is that many of them came from private companies, for example did those in the North British collection, where the company lasted until 1962, come from North British or are they in some way exBR? These drawings might never have been in the ownership of BR and so the question arises as to whether or not they went into the public domain when they became part of the NRM collection.

Graham,

I believe most, if not all, of the NB drawings came from Andrew Barclay in Kilmarnock who took over the responsibility for looking after NB equipment after NB closed in the 1960s. The story relating to the drawings is here

http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/archives/news/dunaskinnews200207/bringinghomethebarclay/

I believe that the Glasgow University archive hold the North British drawings and that the NRM hold the drawings from its constituent companies pre-1903.

Jim.

 

[pete waterman]

The NRM may do what they like but if its PD what could they sue for as they would have had no loss and that's all they could sue for. As for the NB drawings well that would be down to each loco. But if the loco had been part of BR then the drawings come under the same PD rule. I said it was fun and of course there's the 50 year rule.

 

[daifly]

I believe that the Glasgow University archive hold the North British drawings and that the NRM hold the drawings from its constituent companies pre-1903.

They may have been moved since, but I purchased a number of drawings and photos of Sharp Stewart and Dübs locos from both the Mitchell Library and Glasgow University in the late 70s/early 80s.