I Have Always Known That A Company Can Have Copyright Of A Film,

or say a song,

 but I never realised a householder can have a copyright of their house, but it, according to this story appears that You can, a family in Forest Hill, Toronto, Canada, has taken their neighbours to court for copying the design of their multi-million dollar house when renovating their property, thus decreasing the value of their own home, they are asking for $2.5 million in damages, Barbara Ann and Eric Kirshenblatt learned that the hard way three years ago, when they were taken to court by their neighbours, Jason and Jodi Chapnick, whose home they had allegedly used as inspiration when renovating their own property, the Chapnicks claimed that the defendants had fixed up their house to look “strikingly similar” to theirs, including using matching stonework the same shade of blue, they were asking for $1.5 million in damages, $20,000 in statutory copyright damages, $1 million in punitive damages, and for the defendants to change the look of their house, 

 Barbara Ann and Eric Kirshenblatt never resided at their newly renovated house, and in February 2015, they sold it for $3.5 million, almost $2 million more than what they had paid for the property, this only added insult to injury, and the Chapniks pressed on with their lawsuit,

 the plaintiffs asked their neighbours to provide photos of houses that they had used as inspiration to prove that they had not stolen their design, but only received photos of houses found online as well as of a famous movie castle,

 “The defendants do not know the addresses for the houses (found online) or the Castle from the James Bond movie,” case documents show, after three years of litigation, the two families, whose homes are on different streets, 850 meters apart, have finally decided to settle out of court, for an undisclosed amount, “We often don’t think about architecture when we think about copyright, and we often don’t think about buildings as works of art, so it might seem like a particularly strange claim to the average person who assumes that if you own a home you can design it as you want,” Carys Craig, an associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, told The Toronto Star, now what was it that Charles Caleb Colton said? "Imitation is the sincerest [form] of flattery".