Every set of drawings you produce, every specification you write, every model you build belongs to you. Under AIA B101 Article 7, the architect retains copyright in all instruments of service. The owner gets a license, not ownership.

This distinction matters more than most candidates realize. Copyright ownership determines who can reuse documents on future projects, who controls modifications, and who bears liability when drawings get repurposed without the architect's involvement. It also shapes how firms protect their most valuable asset: their design work.

B101 Section 7.3 grants the owner a nonexclusive license to use the architect's instruments of service for constructing, maintaining, altering, and adding to the project. But that license comes with a critical condition: the owner must have performed its obligations under the agreement, including prompt payment. Stop paying, and the license can be challenged.

The scope of "instruments of service" extends beyond construction drawings. It covers reports, studies, specifications, sketches, and digital models. Any document through which the architect expresses professional services falls under this protection. Clients sometimes assume they are purchasing documents when they hire an architect. They are not. They are purchasing professional services, and the documents are simply the medium of delivery.

For the ARE, you need to understand how copyright works in the owner-architect relationship, what triggers license rights, what happens when documents get shared with contractors or transferred to lenders, and how digital practice tools like BIM raise new IP questions that standard contract language may not fully address.