Imagine searching for Buckingham Palace on Wikipedia. It’s perfectly logical to expect the main article to feature several images of the palace, but now imagine that instead of seeing the palace, you encounter a black wall, censoring the facade completely. Welcome to the new absurdity from the European Parliament, which recommended a modification to copyright laws that would extend its restrictions to images of public buildings and other similar constructions.
What is freedom of panorama?
Many may be reading this term for the first time: freedom of panorama. In simple terms, each country has different laws that allow photographing public buildings, statues, monuments, works of art, and constructions like bridges or piers, without falling into copyright violations. Now, note that I said “each country”, but not “all countries”. One of the most peculiar cases is that of France. If you take a photograph of the Eiffel Tower during the day, everything goes well, but if the shot is at night, with the tower’s lights on, well… maybe someone, more precisely the “Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel”, could get in touch with you about that photograph. No, it’s not a joke. The tower’s lights are considered “an artistic work”, and therefore fall under the protection of current mechanisms.
Another even more ridiculous case is the Atomium building in Belgium. While it is possible to find images of the building, portals like Wikipedia must comply with the “worldwide license” held by the Belgian “Société d'Auteurs Belge – Belgische Auteurs Maatschappij”, which basically demands payment if your sneeze sounds like a song.
A proposal that could change everything
In fact, it is Wikipedia that brings us here, or at least, its current problem. On the past June 16th, Member of the European Parliament Jean-Marie Cavada (French, 75 years old) proposed Amendment 421 for something called “Implementation of Directive 2001/29/EC on the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society”. In essence, what this amendment suggests is limiting freedom of panorama to non-commercial works. That sounds good in theory, but the underlying question is really a two-ton rhinoceros: Which of these intergalactic geniuses has the ability to differentiate a commercial work from a non-commercial one on the Web? If I upload a photo to Facebook, that action gives the social network commercial rights over it, so could an image of my (theoretical and very improbable) vacation in London get me into legal trouble?
It is necessary to recognize that this is unlikely. After all, the amendment is in a report from the Parliament, and only the European Commission has the exclusive right to propose new legislation. Even if the Parliament approves the report as is on the upcoming July 9th, it cannot in any way impose its suggestions and recommendations on the Commission. But the concern of Wikipedia, and by extension Wikimedia, is legitimate. Cavada insists that the goal of the proposal is not to pursue the common Internet user, but he is the same politician who called Wikimedia “a US monopoly”. I think it was under a similar idea that the famous Google tax emerged, and we already know how that ended...
