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ON THE MOVE WARE MALCOMB NAMES ALBERT YANG STUDIO MANAGER, ARCHITECTURE IN DALLAS OFFICE Ware Malcomb, an award-winning international design firm, announced Albert Yang joined the firm as studio manager, Architecture in its Dallas office. In this role, Yang will help lead the overall growth of the Architecture Studio, and manage select projects. Yang brings more than 27 years of architectural and design expertise to the Ware Malcomb team, having worked on a diverse international portfolio of projects including multifamily, aerospace, industrial, civic, hospitality and commercial. Previously, he worked for a national architectural, master planning and design firm as a project manager, and has held design management roles

for firms in Hawaii, California and South Korea in his career. “Albert is an experienced architect and excellent communicator who builds lasting relationships, elevates the studio’s design capabilities, and provides critical up-front design and QA/QC support,” said Chris Mavros, principal, Ware Malcomb. “We are pleased to welcome him to this role and look forward to his contributions to the team.” Yang studied abroad via the University of Copenhagen’s DIS program and graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa with a Bachelor of Architecture degree. Yang is a member of the American Institute of Architects and certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards.

In addition, he is an award-winning speaker who trains professionals in the art of public speaking and leadership, encouraging positive relationships and individual empowerment. Ware Malcomb has been an industry leader in the Dallas region since 2019. In conjunction with the firm’s Houston office, Ware Malcomb has worked on nearly 1,400 projects throughout Texas, in collaboration with numerous Fortune 500 companies. Established in 1972, Ware Malcomb is a contemporary and expanding full- service design firm providing professional architecture, planning, interior design, civil engineering, branding and building measurement services.

the employer or commissioning party is considered the author and copyright owner. If an individual is employed by a firm, the owner of the individual’s work product, or creative output, is the company and not the employee. Similarly, since a client pays or commissions a firm to create a project, the creative output may be considered work made for hire, which would mean that the firm producing the design is not the actual author. Understandably, this can create some cognitive dissonance since in no way do these clients create the work, and yet they can be considered the author. When AI is involved in the project, we must consider how to deliver work product to clients if authorship or ownership cannot vest in the design team or client. While each company will have different levels of comfort with utilizing AI tools operating in this legal gray area, until the law is able to catch up and provide clarity, it is important for each to be informed in its decision-making and set up appropriate guardrails in line with their risk tolerance. Company policies for AI use vary in detail and scope, ranging from general guiding principles around responsible use to the implementation of AI task forces and detailed protocols for specific tools. When forming these policies, firms should consider the ethical use of AI, management of confidential data and intellectual property rights, and quality assurance. Firms should also place controls around which AI tools are utilized, as new technologies are released every day and not all are of the same quality or effectiveness. Architects and engineers will not stop innovating and pushing the state of the art, whether with AI or other technologies, and in doing so they may well inform and push innovation in the state of the law as well. Irina Rice, Esq., LEED AP is general counsel at FXCollaborative. Connect with her on LinkedIn .

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exploration of questions of authorship, the stakes become much higher when these questions are applied to emerging technologies using artificial intelligence that are rapidly becoming embedded in daily life. As these technologies are continually evolving, this is an emerging area of law that has far more questions than answers at this time. In AEC, as in many other creative industries, there are lots of conversations about ownership, creation, how the design process is affected, and how to use these powerful tools responsibly and ethically. For example, it is not clear whether AI output is copyrightable – is the output created by the algorithm (non-human) or is it created by the software developer (human), who created the algorithm, which then creates the output? If it is copyrightable, then the question becomes who owns the copyright. Can that ownership be taken from works that are already copyrighted, or is the AI infringing on the existing copyright? Does authorship reside in the software developers, and can it truly be assigned to the person who has obtained the license to use that software? In the meantime, many generative AI platforms are doing their best to hedge against and punt on these questions in their terms of use, with statements that they will grant the software license holder rights if or to the extent they have ownership to grant. Others have taken a more definite position that they do grant ownership, with the purchase of upgraded software subscriptions of course. As we wait for clarity on these legal questions, we must navigate a gray area of whether and how to use these transformative tools in our projects without potentially infringing on another party’s copyright. This gray area also extends to our clients. The concept of works made for hire is seen often with AEC projects, when

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THE ZWEIG LETTER DECEMBER 2, 2024, ISSUE 1563

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