Painting Public buildings rights?

[MrsG_SoCal]

I took a picture of a local business in my home town and painted a picture of it. It was on my website - stupidly without a copy write watermark. The business has taken my image and is now using it on their website, altering it with their shop info.

I sold the painting to a friend.

Question: Does the shop own the rights to their shop image? Do I have any rights to my representation of their shop image??

[Yorky]

You own the copyright to the painting.

You could ask a fee for their use of your copyright image.

Doug

[Greg Long]

They cannot use your art without permission. As Doug said, offer to license the image to them.

[MrsG_SoCal]

Appreciate the response all. I assumed I had the rights to my painting, however I was unsure of his rights since I painting it without asking.

[Bluegill]

Mrs G, I hope you'll post a follow-up; did you ask the business about this? Did they pay you?

[Rusalka]

The shop has no rights whatsoever. You do not need to ask permission to paint or photograph something seen from the public way.

[mastermesh]

When was the building built? I can't remember the law or whatever, but somewhere, I remember reading that buildings built up to a certain time (think it was in the 1990s?) were basically public domain before that time, but after it became 'copyrighted' sort of by the architect.

[Rusalka]

Originally Posted by mastermesh

When was the building built? I can't remember the law or whatever, but somewhere, I remember reading that buildings built up to a certain time (think it was in the 1990s?) were basically public domain before that time, but after it became 'copyrighted' sort of by the architect.

That is incorrect. That may apply to architecture or architectural plans, but that's not what is being discussed here.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyrig..._United_States

" First, when a building is ordinarily visible from a public place, its protection as an "architectural work" does not include the right to prevent the making, distributing, or public display of pictures, photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work.[13] Thus, the architect will not be able to prevent people from taking photographs or otherwise producing pictorial representations of the building."