Copyrighting public art in the EU


Control freakery about public art and buidlings


 

Campaign: Vote Non...

Wikipedia spearheads the campaign against more crap EU censorship law that will remove the right to freely use photos of notable buildings and monuments


Link Here3rd July 2015
Full story: Copyrighting public art in the EU...Control freakery about public art and buidlings
Wikipedia is campaigning against yet more censorial legislation from the EU. Wikepedia writes:

Absence of full Freedom of Panorama means we can't illustrate Wikipedia properly.  

For more than a decade, volunteers have compiled countless facts and contributed millions of hours to build Wikipedia. Photographers have donated hundreds of thousands of photos to illustrate the articles.

The reason Wikipedia can freely depict public spaces in most of the countries in the European Union is that we enjoy full Freedom of Panorama . This is an exception to copyright that allows people to make and use photographs of public spaces without restriction, while at the same time protecting the architect's or visual artist's rights.

Now, the free use of many of these images is in danger by a proposal in the European Parliament . If the restrictive text accepted by the Legal Affairs Committee is adopted in the course of the upcoming EU legislative procedure on copyright reform, hundreds of thousands of images on Wikipedia would no longer be free and thus would no longer belong in Wikipedia.

Read more

Contact a Member of the European Parliament

 

 

Update: Swedish Courts vs The People...

Swedish court claims Wikimedia cannot make a database of photos of public art in Sweden


Link Here 9th April 2016
Full story: Copyrighting public art in the EU...Control freakery about public art and buidlings
Sweden's supreme court has sided with commercial copyright concerns and ruled that the non-profit internet giant Wikimedia breaches Sweden's copyright laws by publishing photos of public artworks.

Wikimedia is the group behind the free online encyclopaedia Wikipedia. It has created a vast online knowledge repository by allowing members of the public to group-edit entries and upload pictures to its pages for educational purposes.

The disgraceful judgement is a victory for the Visual Copyright Society in Sweden (Bildupphovsrätt  i Sverige - BUS), which sued Wikimedia at Stockholm District Court for publishing photos of Swedish public sculptures and other public artworks without first getting permission from the artists.

In its judgement the supreme court affirmed that Swedish copyright law does permit members of the public to take pictures of public artworks. But, the court said:

It is different when it's a database where artworks are made available to the public to an unlimited extent without copyright-holders receiving any remuneration. A database of this kind can be deemed to have a commercial value that is not inconsiderable.

Wikimedia's Swedish operations manager Anna Troberg told The Local:

We are naturally very disappointed. We view this as an anachronistic and restrictive interpretation of copyright laws. It also runs counter to recommendations from the European Court of Human Rights.

Troberg said the group would now consult its lawyer and its parent foundation in the United States before deciding what action to take.




 

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