Apologies in advance, it's not possible to write about this sort of thing without being tedious, but the perception that this ruling is harmful isn't entirely accurate and it's important (at least for the Americans here, and specifically those working inside the 10th circuit where this opinion is binding).
Here are the parts I think are important:
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Meshwerks insists that, contrary to the district court’s summary judgment determination, its digital models of Toyota cars and trucks are sufficiently original to warrant copyright protection. Meshwerks’ models, which form the base layers of computerized substitutes for product photographs in advertising, are unadorned, digital wire-frames of Toyota’s vehicles. While fully appreciating that digital media present new frontiers for copyrightable creative expression, in this particular case the uncontested facts reveal that Meshwerks’ models owe their designs and origins to Toyota and deliberately do not include anything original of their own; accordingly, we hold that Meshwerks’ models are not protected by copyright and affirm
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To supply these digital models, Saatchi and Toyota hired Grace & Wild, Inc. (“G&W”). In turn, G&W subcontracted with Meshwerks to assist with two initial aspects of the project – digitization and modeling. Digitizing involves collecting physical data points from the object to be portrayed... some areas of detail, such as wheels, headlights, door handles, and the Toyota emblem, could not be accurately measured using current technology; those features had to be added at the second “sculpting” stage, and Meshwerks had to recreate those features as realistically as possible by hand, based on photographs.
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With Meshwerks’ wire-frame products in hand, G&W then manipulated the computerized models by, first, adding detail, the result of which appeared on screen as a “tightening” of the wire frames, as though significantly more wires had been added to the frames, or as though they were made of a finer mesh. Next, G&W digitally applied color, texture, lighting, and animation for use in Toyota’s advertisements.
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Specifically, defendants argued that any original expression found in Meshwerks’ products was attributable to the Toyota designers who conceived of the vehicle designs in the first place; accordingly, defendants’ use of the models could not give rise to a claim for copyright infringement... The district court agreed. It found that the wire-frame models were merely copies of Toyota’s products, not sufficiently original to warrant copyright protection
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So the court has agreed with Toyota and their advertising firm, and the vis firm the ad firm contracted, that the subcontractor who did the modeling could not
copyright the models because they contain no original creative intent (they are unadorned copies). Later on they write:
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In addition, the work must “possesses at least some minimal degree of creativity,” ... (“both independent creation and a minimal degree of creativity are required”), though this is not to say that to count as containing a minimal degree of creativity a work must have aesthetic merit in the minds of judges (arguably not always the most artistically discerning lot). As the Court explained through Justice Holmes, even “a very modest grade of art has in it something irreducible, which is one man’s alone. That something he may copyright . . . .” ... (all that’s needed is some creative
spark, “no matter how crude, humble, or obvious”).
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Later on they discuss photography, and a case in which the Supreme Court ruled that a photo was copyrightable:
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“posing the said Oscar Wilde in front of the camera, selecting and arranging the costume, draperies, and other various accessories in said photograph, arranging the subject so as to present graceful outlines, arranging and disposing the light and shade, suggesting and evoking the desired expression . . . .”
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And then, later, the most important paragraph in the thing as far as we're concerned:
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Applying these principles, evolved in the realm of photography, to the new medium that has come to supplement and even in some ways to supplant it, we think Meshwerks’ models are not so much independent creations as (very good) copies of Toyota’s vehicles. In reaching this conclusion we rely on (1) an objective assessment of the particular models before us and (2) the parties’ purpose in creating them. All the same, we do not doubt for an instant that the digital medium before us, like photography before it, can be employed to create vivid new expressions fully protectable in copyright.
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I'm not going to quote any further, because if this came up in court with somebody here suing a client, that would be the part your lawyer would quote - this opinion
does not set precedent that digital models can not be copyrighted; it actually does the complete opposite. It rules that if a digital artist applies any creativity to the work, even if it's not done skillfully or if it's obvious, a court must recognize the digital artist's creative work without judging the merits of the creative expression. They specify (but do not limit the ruling to) a situation in which the artist is doing the same sort of work a photographer might, in lighting and composing the shot. Meshwerks did none of this (in the PDF of the ruling, Appendix A, the wireframes, is Meshwerk's work, and B, the renders, is by the firm that contracted the modeling to Meshwerks). In this case, the court ruled that digital models and image
can be copyrighted, but that these particular models can not because they are done deliberately without artistic expression (if the car had been shown on a road in front of a tree is the example they give - in that case it would have been copyrightable).
Interestingly, thought Meshwerks alludes to breach of contract, they do not appear to have produced a contract or any evidence thereof and the court does not address breach of contract in the ruling.
I think the lesson here is you don't give your models to the client without a written contract on how they may be used, but even if you did, if they wanted to reuse your model they would not be able to use the materials, lights, camera, and any modeling that is not taken exactly from the architect's drawing.