Say a prospective client walks into your office and shows you a set of plans with your competitor's logo on it, and asks you to bid the project. Times are tough, and you need the job. What do you do?

To me, if the client has the plans, he/she has likely paid for them. I for one would not give out drawings to client unless they pay me for design services up front.
If you know the competition and are on good terms with them..well, it's a difficult toss. Just keep in mind "what goes around... comes around".

Thane

I recommend calling the designer and asking him/her what's up, and especially, have they been paid in full. If not, bad things can happen to you and the client if the plans, or even parts of the plans, are built from.

Plus, it's the right thing to do. Clients come and go, and should never be encouraged to game the system. Your timber framer colleagues will be in your universe a lot longer.

I'm actually on the short end of this stick. I prepared the drawings, and the client is now shoping them around. I'm curious how many of my competitors will ask who owns the plans. I don't usually charge for preliminary design work - I consider that part of sales and marketing. Perhaps I'm being naive there. The plans are low-res, and preliminary, but still represent a significant amount of time and skill. CB.

Sorry to hear that Daiku. Do you have in the "information" section of your drawings something along the lines of "Property of Northern Lights"?. Or maybe an agreement before hand to have the design inclusive if you build, but if you don't build they must be bought? Interested in your thoughts on this.

I don't think you're being naïve. I do think it's important to make it clear to potential clients that design work, even at the preliminary phase, has value and is protected by copyright.

In most jurisdictions, clients are buying the right to build once from a set of plans. Shopping preliminary plan sets around whether they have your name on them or not really just doesn't smell quite right.

At this point we can only hope that your colleagues have a sufficiently mature moral sense to pick up the phone and give you a call.

I think I know Guild members well enough to be able to predict that nearly all of them would do that without a second thought.

Comments?

I have a copyright notice on them. And when the client told me what he was up to, I explained to him that it was "unfair" to allow my competitors to bypass the preliminary design, and potentially underbid me because of that. I did not get upset with him, however, as I still hope to win the job. I'm just hoping that he gets some push back on the other end.

I've been on the other side of this, and I did the right thing: I called the person that made the plans, and make sure everything was above board.

I'm not sure about asking them to pay for the plans if they don't build. I don't like the idea of asking them to commit any funds before they find out what the frame cost will be. That's the point of these preliminary drawings is to get to a point where we can fix a price to it. I'll definitely be more clear in the future about "fair use" of the drawings before I hand them over. CB.

I'm not really suggesting that they should pay for preliminary design work.

I recognize that that can be a powerful sales tool, Especially given your facility would sketch up.

However, none of us think it's appropriate for your competitor to benefit from your sales efforts in design. In the moral world he should at the very least be offering to compensate you for your design time in the event that he wins the job away from you, by virtue of having a bigger humdinger or fancier office, or whatever turns their heads.

Years ago Tedd Benson and Jeff Arvin helped the Business Council write what I think is a really nice code of conduct, and you should be able to find it on their website. timberframe.org

It might be a good thing to hand out to prospective clients on their first visit when you belong to the TFBC or not.

Wow - high traffic and quick for this thread.

For the same reason the answer to this question is easy to find in good times, it is much the same, maybe more so in tough times.

I am shopping much the same as they are, shopping for someone I can work with. And it goes without saying that that would be someone who thinks they can work with me. (and is perhaps looking for something unique that I can bring to the table) This is just paramount for me.

I can think of little worse than entering an arrangement with someone who may prove to be difficult to work with (as you know building is high stress for many, and tends to amplify their shortcomings) and has exemplified it from the beginning by showing their own lack of ethics by going tire-kicking with a design they have failed to pay for. Or worse yet, perhaps is using the recession to get someone to cut their frame for cost, because they are smart enough (and have the financial wherewithal in this credit driven downturn) to know there are many trades out there scrambling for anything to keep their people busy.

I do know I’ve lost potential work in the past just by asking the “Do you own this design” question. It has though, also gotten me work, (folks aren’t always aware of their faux pas) When we’ve used an uninteresting set of stock plans as a springboard to begin real conversation about what they really wish to build.

And I do find that most don't balk at the suggestion that they should expect to pay for good design and the time it takes.

Some time ago I read through the case of T-Peg vs. Vermont Timber Works. This thread led me to recall the case and take a look at the outcome in District Court (September 2009). I believe it's the only case involving the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act (AWCPA) that has been tested to this extent.

T-Peg vs Vermont Timber Works

Sounds like a lot of time with lawyers . . .