EUSSR wants to stop holiday snaps without permission.

harry · 2015-07-05T05:52:51+00:00

Yet more madness from Brussels. "Freedom od Panorama." Clause 46 (formerly the subject of Amendment 421 in committee) of the Julia Reda report on Copyright issues involves the right to publish pictures of public buildings and artworks such as sculptures permanently installed in p ublic places. 46. Considers that the commercial use of photographs, video footage or oth er images of works which are permanently located in physical public places should always be subject to prior authorisation from the authors or any pro xy acting for them; In some countries such publications require a permission from the architect or rights holder of the public artwork, while the majority of EU member st ates enjoys the so-called Freedom of Panorama, which allows anyone to publi sh photographs, documentary films and other works depicting public places w ithout restriction. It was anticipated that Freedom of Panorama would become universal across E urope. The proposal adopted in committee would, should it become law, abolish the existing comprehensive Freedom of Panorama laws in a majority of EU Member States. The draft report pointed out that the need to acquire a licence for such ev eryday activities as sharing one's holiday pictures on social media was ana chronistic and that Freedom of Panorama should become a rule in the entire European Union. In the vote the legal affairs committee turned this proposal on its head, b y adopting the most restrictive amendment on the question of Freedom of Pan orama. As a consequence of this absurd proposal, restricting the Freedom of Panora ma in Europe restricted to non-commercial use only would see many internet sites having to comb through their content to expunge anything which offend ed this new proposal. Wikipedia, for example, would have to expend huge res ources to remove anything which did not comply. This would involve many tens of thousands of images of public places in Eur ope. It might be thought that a...