The licence clause in the appointment
Architect copyright licence: what AIA B101 and RIBA give clients
Updated
Both standard appointments keep the architect as owner and give the client a licence for the project. That licence is narrow, and it is what leaves room for a practice to license its archive elsewhere.
Ask about my practice's archive Most appointments leave copyright with the architect, and most tools leave the files with you. Tell us how the archive was built and we will write back about your own projects.
AIA B101
Under B101-2017 the architect and its consultants are deemed the authors and owners of their instruments of service, and the owner receives a license to use them solely and exclusively for constructing, using, maintaining, altering and adding to the project. Where the owner terminates for convenience, B101 has the owner pay a licensing fee for continued use.
Source: AIA Contract Documents, The Rights of an Architect's Instruments of Service
RIBA Professional Services Contracts
The RIBA describes the conditions attached to the client's licence to use the architect's copyright materials as one of the backbone clauses of its 2020 contracts, balancing what a client will accept against the risk of a client using materials it has not paid for.
Source: RIBA, Professional Services Contracts: a helpful and practical agreement
When the licence was made exclusive or assigned
In the UK an exclusive licence has to be in writing signed by the copyright owner, and an agreement signed before the work exists can assign future copyright. A practice should look for either in its appointments before treating a project as its own to license.