Freedom of Photography

[davidb]

European Parliament: Save the Freedom of Photography! #saveFoP @Europarl_EN

Nico Trinkhaus, Berlin

On 9 July 2015, the European Parliament might destroy photography.
The Freedom of taking photos in public places is under attack. Until now, in most countries in Europe you were safe to take and publish photographs that are taken from public ground – This is called Freedom of Panorama. When you were on vacation, you could take a photo from the London Eye and share it with your friends on Facebook*. If someone wanted to pay you for using this photo, that was okay as well. Both is about to change may destroy photography as we know it.
Julia Reda, member of the European Parliament, tried to bring the Freedom of Panorama to all countries of the EU, as few countries like France and Italy don’t have such law yet. In the majority of countries such as the UK, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria and Croatia, you’re safe to take, publish and sell photos of public buildings when taken from public grounds.
However, the current draft turned the proposal upside down. Instead of bringing the Freedom of Panorama to the few countries that don’t know such law yet, it would take it away from all those who do. With this, Street-, Travel- and Architecture-Photography would be dead as we know it. It is impossible to find out the architect of every public building in order to ask for permission before you can publish and possibly sell the photo.
I therefore call on the members of the European Parliament to
Not limit the Freedom of Panorama in any way
and instead to
Bring the Freedom of Panorama to all member states of the EU
so that the European Citizens can be assured to act within the law when taking and publishing photographs from public buildings anywhere in the European Union. This is necessary to embrace our European Culture and Art!
*As Julia Reda, member of the European Parliament, points out, even the private upload of a photograph on Facebook would need the consent of the architect, as with the upload you grant Facebook a license to commercially use the photograph.
Petition in German here

For the media requests:
Nico Trinkhaus, Freelance Travel Photographer and Founder of PhotoClaim
As a travel photographer I try to capture the landmarks of the world in the best light, to motivate as many people as possible to start travelling and exploring cultures. This wouldn't be possible without the Freedom of Panorama. Since I'm working as a photographer all over Europe, I also know the disadvantages of the still not completely harmonized copyright law in the EU. To protect photographers rights, I started PhotoClaim, a service that helps photographers to enforce their rights in the other European countries. Photography as an art must be able to capture the beauty and culture of the world, without the photographer being afraid to break the law.


Sign the petition here:

https://www.change.org/p/european-parli ... fHzU0F8%3D

[Mike Farley]

See also this earlier post from last week - viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1662.

[quote="davidb"....... as few countries like France and Italy don’t have such law yet. [/quote]

In fact there are several European countries which have the more restrictive rules:

• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Denmark
• Estonia
• France
• Finland
• Italy
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• The Netherlands
• Portugal
• Spain
• Romania
• Slovenia

This is a classic case of the EU meddling in something relatively trvial and proposing a reduction of existing freedoms. I suggest that you read Raphaël Dorgans' (assistant to the French MEP Jean-Marie Cavada putting forward the change) comments quoted in the AP article. If you take them to their logical conclusion, all photography would be banned to protect users from the scourges of the likes of Facebook. This is a half baked, ill thought out and unnecessary proposition which attempts to introduce new legislation because, apparently, we are all too stupid to think for ourselves. What is it about so called liberals who are anything but?

[Mike Farley]

As a counterpoint, I have come across this article which claims that this is a scare story and that a vote by the European Parliament in favour of the proposal will not be binding, rather an EU directive could only come about by agreement of the majority of member states. It still means that there are legislators out there who are in favour of imposing unnecessary and probably largely unworkable regulations, but those people will always exist unfortunately.

http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/eur ... ondon-eye/

[Rose]

Extract from the latest PAGB newsletter...

download/file.php?mode=view&id=1604

[GrahamL]

There was a similar e-mail by the RPS on Friday, also recommending signing the chance.org petition. The point was made that the proposal to harmonise comes from a small number of vested interests and if there should be change it should be based on the more accepted UK model. 'The Society believes that the proposal should be dismissed before it gains any traction'.

Cheers,

Graham

[Mike Farley]

There appears to be plenty of political as well as public opposition to this ill considered and unnecessary proposal. The vote is today and MEP Julia Reda is confident that the relevant paragraph will be deleted.

Report from Amateur Photographer - http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/la ... rama-55572

[Rose]

I saw a report the other day saying it had already been deleted....

[Mike Farley]

I saw a report the other day saying it had already been deleted....

There seem to be conflicting reports. According to the AP article it will require a vote in the EU Parliament.

[Rose]

An overwhelming majority of MEPs have voted against the amendment
Common sense has prevailed in Europe... For once LOL

[Mike Farley]

If this had gone ahead, I would definitely have voted "No" in the forthcoming referendum on Europe. I think that had them worried.