Neighbor Sues For $2.5 Million After Renovation Looks Too Much Like Their Own House
from the copyright-madness dept
Copyright on home design has always been a really sketchy idea. Earlier this year, we wrote about a disturbing trend of housing copyright trolls and have had some other similar stories over time. For reasons that are beyond me, the Berne Convention requires copyright on architecture, and that creates silly situations, such as the one in Australia, where a homeowner was forced to modify their home due to "infringement."
And this nonsense has spread to Canada. The Toronto Star has the story of a couple, Jason and Jodi Chapnik, living in Forest Hill, Toronto (one of the "most affluent neighborhoods" in Toronto), who sued their neighbors for $2.5 million for the horrific faux pas of renovating their house to look too much like the Chapniks.
Jason and Jodi Chapnik, who own the home on Strathearn Rd., near Bathurst and Eglinton Sts., alleged that a house on nearby Vesta Dr. was newly renovated to look “strikingly similar” to theirs — including using the same shade of blue and matching grey stonework.
The Chapniks filed a lawsuit against neighbour Barbara Ann Kirshenblatt, her builder husband and architect brother-in-law for copyright infringement in federal court, as well as the real estate agent who profited from the house’s recent sale and the anonymous contractors who worked on the house. They were seeking $1.5 million in damages, $20,000 in statutory copyright damages, $1 million in punitive damages, and a mandatory injunction on the defendant to change the design of the home.
Of all the things in the world to be concerned about, how totally screwed up must your priorities be to freak out that someone around the corner has a house that looks kinda similar? The story notes that the case went on for 3 years, before recently being settled. As Kirshenblatt noted in filings in the case, nearly all of the so-called copied features appear to be pretty standard features you'd see in nearly any Tudor-style house -- and they pointed to other properties (including a Scottish castle) with similar features that they based their house on.
The whole thing is a reminder, yet again, of the ridiculousness of locking up ideas like home design under copyright. No one is inspired to design a house because of the copyright you get. There is no necessary incentive there. People design homes not for the copyright, but for the home. What a complete waste of time.
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Filed Under: architecture, copyright, houses, jason chapnik, jodi chapnik, toronto, tudor homes
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They copied other things too
Madness.
Next thing you know, they will be installing a driveway, walkway and wait... They already copied those too. Those bastards are going to pay now.
Some people really need to just be barred from every using the court to demonstrate their insanity. Maybe they should be wearing a helmet and bite guard to prevent the online assaults that they deserve for bringing a lawsuit like this in the first place.
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Re: They copied other things too
Some people really need to just be barred from every using the court to demonstrate their entitlement.
FTFY
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Re: Re: They copied other things too
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Re: They copied other things too
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And you can't comment on the article because they obviously value user relationships.
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Next anti-copyright piece, please,
Sheesh. You're yet again incensed over a LOST battle in settled law.
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Re: Next anti-copyright piece, please,
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Re: Re: Next anti-copyright piece, please,
Tell ya what, Masnick. Just sit down with a blank sheet of paper and design a house. I don't mean draw a facade and leave details to "workers", but sit down and specify a workable plan with electricles, ventricles, insulage, pipage, sewerage, broadband cabling, outside covering, windowage, numerous components within: light switches, outlets, and door latches at least, load limits, and so on, all with optimum use of space and minimum materials, besides convenient to live in, and that can actually be built and up to code. -- You can't do it, college boy. First, you're too lazy. 2nd, you're not competent at integrating the wide range of knowledge: all your "work" experience is simply the WRITING OPINIONS from out of the blue.
Sprawling because of a length limit Techdirt now imposes.
Are you happier with three headings rather than one?
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Re: Re: Re: Next anti-copyright piece, please,
Which was clearly unneeded, because...
...your belief that education and intelligence are an insult tells us everything we need to know about you and your opinions.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Next anti-copyright piece, please,
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Re: Re: Re: Next anti-copyright piece, please,
sit down and specify a workable plan with electricles, ventricles, insulage, pipage, sewerage, broadband cabling, outside covering, windowage, numerous components within: light switches, outlets, and door latches at least, load limits, and so on, all with optimum use of space and minimum materials, besides convenient to live in, and that can actually be built and up to code.
Literally nothing you just listed is covered by copyright.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Next anti-copyright piece, please,
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People design homes not for the copyright, but for the home.
Tell that to the heirs of Frank Lloyd Wright.
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Re:
And that’s fundamentally the problem with copyrights for architectural works: they harm the public by imposing restrictions while providing no incentive for architects to create works they otherwise would not have created and made public.
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And it's not just copyright that Masnick is maligning. Why shouldn't I be able to trademark "use of gray stone as an architectural element"? Think how much richer Wright's heirs could be if he had only thought to trademark "use of concrete in private residences"! And think how many homes Wright will not design, because he knows that OTHER PEOPLE ARE USING CONCRETE!
Creativity shouldn't be an issue here, except perhaps the creativity of the lawyers filing paperwork. And this is a good thing, because ... it's just not that hard to design or build a house. They teach it in high school, as our anonymous friend from the short bus would have known if he'd stayed out of jail that long.
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Easy way out for defendant.
Their architect does.
The don't have standing to sue.
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Re: Easy way out for defendant.
Normally when someone gets done for copyright infringement it isn't for the actual building, but the plans the building were built with.
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Re: Re: Re: Easy way out for defendant.
Also note that architectural works do not include “individual standard features” or things that aren’t buildings, per the Copyright Act.
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Abolish Copyright
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Re: Abolish Copyright
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Re: Abolish Copyright
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That means you have to keep the houses looking almost identical, for all intents and purposes, so that the street remains uniform and the original Victorian look and feel is preserved.
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Finally I get the poop emoji.
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Similar case: Stuttgart railway station
One the heir asked for a court injunction, since tearing down part of the building would infringe his (inherited) copyright, as the overall impression of the protected building would change.
The court turned him down on the grounds that three quarters of the copyright protection period had lapsed already, and there was a strong public interest (make that government interest, large parts of the public actually wanted to keep the original building).
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Re: Similar case: Stuttgart railway station
That's rubbish in my opinion. The artist has been paid for the physical copy in place. What the owner does with it is his business. Tearing it down would seem perfectly in order. Now reusing design elements for a rebuilding: there it gets tricky. But as long as the retained design elements are physically kept (and not rebuild with new materials), this should still be fine.
But then that we even need to split those kind of multimillion dollar hairs is insane.
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Re: Similar case: Stuttgart railway station
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You guys are missing the point
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