Autoexebat,
When you say “template,” I assume you are talking about the collections of scale drawings of vehicles that many of us use to produce proofs for clients, right?
You are asking if these drawings are protected by copyright.
The list of things that can be protected by copyright is a long one. Here are a few things, according to the US Copyright Act of 1976: “two-dimensional and three-dimensional works of fine, graphic and applied art, photographs, prints and art reproductions, maps, globes, charts, diagrams, models, and technical drawings, including architectural plans”
Do the vector drawings in the vehicle collections not fit into this list? I believe they are two-dimensional works of graphic art. Could they not also be considered diagrams of a sort, or even technical drawings. They are all drawn to scale and (usually) are accurate representations of the makes and models of the vehicles. The pickup truck outlines, for example, are not just generic truck outlines. The Fords are the Fords and the Chevys are Chevys.
They are in “fixed form” as digital files, a requirement for copyright protection. And they are represented as original by the vendors.
They seem to fit the requirements for protectable works of art (the government's term is “works of authorship”).
What is Copyright?
Copyright protection is actually a bundle of five rights.
If I take a photograph of my dad's antique truck, I alone have the right to duplicate the photo in any way. This is the right to reproduce a work, and is the most elementary power of copyright.
If I make a watercolor rendering of the truck from the photograph I am exercising another of the five rights—the right to make a derivative of the original work. Or I may scan the picture and draw over it in Adobe Illustrator to make a vector file that I can then doctor up with fills and gradients to make a realistic-looking illustration. Both the vector file and the printed illustration would each be derivative works. A derivative work is a separately copyrightable work.
What if I remove the fills and I only have the line drawing? Is it still protected? Yes.
If I decide to print an image of the truck on T-shirts and sell them at car shows and in car magazines, this distribution of multiple copies of the original work to the public is another of the five copyrights—the right to publish the work.
The other two rights connected to copyright protection are the right to publicly perform a work and the right to publicly display a work. These two rights don't have a lot of impact on the field of sign work, but are important in other fields, such as music, theater, fine art, etc.
The idea behind copyright protection is simple. It is to give the original author exclusive control over his or her work of authorship. Copyright protection is embedded in the US Constitution, so it is Federal law in the United States.
Copyright can be viewed as the granting of an exclusive monopoly over a creation to the author, for life. Actually, copyright protection for a work in the US lasts the lifetime of the author—plus 70 years.
What is not protectable under copyright law?
Some things are not protectable: words, short phrases, names, titles, slogans; familiar symbols or designs; variations of typographic ornamentation or lettering (that means many logos cannot be protected by copyright); typeface designs cannot be protected by copyright, either, though the underlying software (the font that you download and install on your hard drive) can be protected. In other words, the appearance, the design, of a typestyle is not protected, but the unique digital code that may produce that typestyle in ink or vinyl is copyrightable.
Other things not copyrightable: blank forms, such as time cards, graph paper, account books, diaries, blank checks, scorecards, address books, report forms, order forms—in other words, things that are designed just for recording or holding information and do not in themselves convey information. Without information filled in, these forms don't really mean anything. It's true that somebody had to design the forms, a designer, but, still, their design is not protected.
So what about the vehicle outline collections?
Are they fill-in-the-blank forms, like a blank check? Or are they protectable works?
Think—what if they were real photos instead of line drawings? Would we be as inclined to view them as not protectable? Actually, would it then not be obvious that they do have copyright protection? Or what if they were illustrations with color fills and gradients? The fact that they are line drawings should have no bearing on the question of whether they are protected. It's true they are referred to as “templates,” but this term is what the vendors choose to call them. That doesn't necessarily mean that the US Copyright Office views them the same as “blank forms.”
I have not seen a collection of these drawings that does not have a prominent copyright notice. And that doesn't mean that they have applied for a registration for each individual drawing. At 55 dollars per registration that would be costly. More likely they register the collections as a whole, as compilations. It still protects everything in the compilation.
I am inclined to believe that the copyright protection claimed for these vehicle outline collections is legitimate.
Of course, these images and files are constantly pirated by people who don't want to pay for them, just as fonts and other software are pirated all the time.
Would one of the vehicle outline companies litigate over someone stealing a drawing? Probably not. But if someone copied an entire collection to sell they probably would sue them, because they would have a chance of being awarded for damages. Suing for copyright infringement is expensive and it can only be done in Federal court in the US. Few companies do it lightly.
Piracy is an unfortunate occupational hazard for companies that provide artwork.
Brad in Kansas City
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If you want a good overview of intellectual property, this is a good book, even though some things in it are slightly dated.
It is one of the textbooks used in the paralegal course at a local college here.
Vehicle Outline collections are not mentioned in the book. It would be interesting to get a lawyer's opinion on the collections.
Intellectual Property: Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights 2nd Edition
by Richard Stim
