Hi There
We are working with two builders simultaneously to create a custom design while we knock down and rebuild. In essence, the builder had put our ideas and design on paper in order to calculate construction/site expenses, etc.
We were ignorant to begin with, believing that the design would be ours and that there would be no problems if we chose not to move on with one of them. At this point, the designs have been finished, and with the exception of a few small details (the interior bathroom's size, facade, and orientation), they are quite identical.
If we don't move forward with any one of them, are we in risk any copyright issues? Although I haven't talked to the builders yet, I know that they charge between $20K and $25K to utilise their design for construction if we chose to work with another building. They also know that I have been working with the other builder and that I would go forward with the builder who I feel offers the greatest value for the money—not the cheapest.
Also I would like to add that i had paid both the builders their intial deposit of $7500 and $5000 so they havent done it for free !
Your designs and sketches are yours. Once a builder transforms them and turns them into usable plans, they own the copyright to those plans, but you keep the rights to your own drafts.
If you've supplied your drafts to both parties independently, and they have both created near-identical designs, then both builders would own copyright for their own plans but wouldn't stop you from using the blueprints already created/owned by the winning builder.
The $20k would be essentially buying the rights to the plans from the selling company (as a draftsman/architecture only service) to take to any other third builder who hasn't created plans from scratch from your sketches. This doesn't seem to apply to your situation if both current builders have independently made designs to quote the job.