A Little Help Here?
June 30th, 2015
by Gwyn Headley
Managing Director
As you all know, I am an extremely intelligent person, with a brain the size of an asteroid.
But even my great intellect has stalled when faced with the concept for a proposed bill to be placed in front of the European Parliament. So I need your help.
The bill, put as simply as possible, seeks to restrict the freedom of panorama in all EU countries. The freedom of panorama, which you may not know you already possess*, allows you to take a photograph in a public place. That’s basically it.
But in a corner of your photograph might be the Louvre Pyramid, the Angel of the North, the Kelpies, the Sagrada Familia, the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Atomium — some structure that someone, somewhere, has copyrighted. Under this proposed law, that will make it illegal for you to sell or share your photograph. Full stop.
What I can’t get my head round is — “Who Will This Benefit?”
Governments usually pass laws to benefit themselves or some noisy sector of the community. Occasionally they benefit the public as a whole. The only reason governments build roads is to collect taxes from the people living at the other end (OK, that’s cynical).
But I really cannot see who can benefit from this proposal. The owners of the Atomium? They might make a couple of euros from selling their own postcards. Yet at a stroke it will criminalise hundreds of thousands of innocent photographers. Is that a good idea?
Of course the law will be ignored and flouted everywhere except the UK, where it will doubtless be enforced with Draconian rigour. But the authorities can be as unpredictably vindictive as 14-year-old girls, and this is one more arrow for their quivers.
Île de France MEP Jean-Marie Cavada proposes to restrict the freedom of panorama in all EU countries, intending to limit the impact of “American monopolies such as Facebook and also Wikimedia” and serving to protect “a sector of European culture and creativity”. fotoLibra contributor Catherine Ilsley writes “I can only conclude that his aim is to reduce EU regulations to the lowest common denominator. This is unacceptable in my opinion as it takes away established rights enjoyed in other countries.” In the UK the freedom of panorama is permitted under section 62 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. The proposal was stapled to a motion tabled by German “Pirate Party” MEP Julia Reda and apparently was not at all what she had proposed.
Predictably, the UK media was outraged: “Now EU wants to BAN your photos of the London Eye and the Angel of the North!” screamed the Daily Express.
A letter in The Times last Friday, signed by luminaries of the British photographic world along with Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, strongly protested against the proposed legislation — “If such a measure is adopted in the future, most websites and most photographers would instantly become copyright infringers with any photo of any public space which features at least one structure designed by a person that is either alive, or died fewer than 70 years ago.”
Nevertheless the European Parliament is voting on the proposal on July 9th. Please let your MEP know how you feel about this move, whether you are for or against it, and ask how you can find out how he or she voted. In case you don’t know who your local MEP is (I didn’t), here’s how to find out:
https://www.mysociety.org/contact-your-meps/?gclid=CL7J3JeLt8YCFYPLtAodIvABDg
I’ve written to mine, and this is what I’ve said.
Dear MEP
On July 9th the European Parliament is voting on a bill to restrict the freedom of panorama — the right to take photographs in a public place.
Effectively this will instantly criminalise hundreds of thousands of innocent photographers, from selfie seekers to the 40,000 members of fotoLibra, a picture library which gives photographers a platform from which to license their image rights.
It is hard to see who will benefit from this unnecessary piece of legislation; the vested interests run so deep they are invisible to the general public.
Please may I, on behalf of fotoLibra and its contributor photographers, ask you to oppose this legislation, which can serve no public good.
Many thanks for your attention.
Yours sincerely
Gwyn Headley
Managing Director, fotoLibra
Please don’t copy and paste my words because these systems reject identical letters, but feel free to adapt them in any way you want. Let the politicians know how you feel!
Catherine Ilsley says “I intend to write to Mr. Cavada and my local MEP about this. I have already signed the petition and shared it on my personal / photographic pages on Facebook and on LinkedIn. In addition to mailing fotoLibra, I also sent the petition to the BFP and another Europe-based stock library that I contribute to. Next up are UK-based photographic magazines. I would welcome any further ideas as I’m not sure that I can do any more at a personal level.”
Let’s all make a fuss about this. This is a needless proposal which can only hinder the great majority of citizens.
Here’s an example. Under Belgian law the following image uploaded to fotoLibra by Chr•s B•k•r is illegal, so please look away now if you are in Brussels:
Atomium
This is what they want you to see — an image of the Atomium on its Wikipedia page:
The Atomium as it appears on its Wikipedia page
*unless you live in the jack-booted juntas of France or Belgium, which already have laws which drastically curtail the freedom of panorama.
Utterly outrageous! Everything that is wrong with the EU in a nutshell (and I’m not anti-Eu).
Nor me. But this makes no sense for anyone.
The law of unintended consequences perhaps ?
An attempt to clip the wings of some over-the-top ‘social media’ but not thought through ?
( like so many political suggestions )
Surely no politician is stupid enough to take this seriously ? But you never know with Brussels – dangerous place.
The best solution is to get out of this Europe nonsense as swiftly as possible.
Meanwhile I’ll alert my MEP anyway – hope he/she’s soon out of a job !
Thanks John. Our problem is that we are rigorous in enforcing bungling EU laws that sunnier climes simply laugh at and ignore.
Hi Gwyn,
That is absolutely ridiculous. How are they actually going to stop people from taking photos and some selling them. Since I now live in the States and I have pictures which they might think are censorable….. how can they stop me?
It looks like most of the EU politicians are missing brains and have too much time to think up these stupid ideas.
Well, they’re not. The weight of public opinion is dead against them; one well promoted petition has gathered 300,000 signatures against the proposal. I can think of some US congressmen who’d be very much at home in the legislative atmosphere of Brussels (except they’d have to leave their guns at the door).
Forget about the London Eye that’s my building in the background and my wife in her car pulling into the drive.
Paul
And that’s NOT me in the passenger seat!
good grief, I am sure I will wake up in a minute.
In Spain tomorrow it will be illegal to demonstrate or to call yourself a republican!
Now this… the free world indeed.
Has that really been passed? I must tell my American friends. I think they’d approve.
Another reason to get the hell out of the EU!
We have barking mad Brits as well — the Unite union has just backed the agreeable but utterly unelectable Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leader!
This is way over the top! Outrageous! I will surely write. If you don’t know who your MEP is check out on the link below.
Regards
http://www.europarl.org.uk/en/your-meps/list-meps-by-region/eastern.html
And many people have — thanks James!
Well written! Here’s some background on how this came to be from MEP Reda: https://juliareda.eu/2015/06/who-is-behind-the-attack-on-freedom-of-panorama/
Thank you Christopher. Reda has disowned Cavada’s amendment (my spellchecker insists I meant Canada).
The EU has gone from the Sublime to the Ridiculous.
When was it Sublime?
A partial result from one of my MEPs:
Dear Mr Hipwell
Thank you for writing to me about the draft report relating to EU copyright rules and in particular freedom of panorama.
Freedom of panorama is not only a long established rule in the UK but would also be completely impractical restriction. I will therefore oppose any measure that aims to prevent freedom of panorama in the UK.
I thank you again for sharing your concerns, which are certainly well justified, and I look forwarded to voting against such measures when the time comes.
Yours sincerely,
Julie Girling
MEP for the South West of England & Gibraltar
Environment, Public Health & Food Safety
Agriculture and Rural Development
Women’s Rights & Gender Equality
Thanks Colin, and thanks Julie — great title! When I lived in Berlin the Bishop of Fulham used to come and visit because technically he was the Anglican Bishop of Fulham and Germany.
Crazy unworkable and probably will be ignored by all
I hope so. We are very good at enforcing unworkable laws. Outside designated sporting and tourist areas, British police always view photographers with suspicion.
Wednesday 1 July 2015
Dear Janice Atkinson, Nigel Farage, Keith Taylor, Daniel Hannan, Nirj
Deva, Richard Ashworth, Anneliese Dodds and Catherine Bearder,
FREEDOM OF PANORAMA
On July 9th the European Parliament is voting on a bill to restrict the
freedom of panorama — the right to take photographs in a public place.
I ask you, as my representative, to vote against this bill. It has no
value to anyone, indeed the impact is negative if it were to be enacted
and enforced. I see no redeeming merit in this initiative at all.
PLEASE VOTE AGAINST THIS BILL.
Yours sincerely,
John Hasson
Thank you John!
As a 14 year old girl I take great offence to being labeled vindictive! If I catch you saying that just one more time I’ll tear your eyes out…OK!
p.s. And Yes, I have sent a letter to my MEP.
OMG Paul, like what are you like? PS: Thanks.
This is stupid idea. How are they actually going to stop people from taking photos and some selling them
You’re right Pradeep, it’s unworkable.
I find it hard to believe that the EU and MEPs are wasting time and money on what seems to be an unenforceable law when they have been procrastinating about European Privacy legislation.
I have written to my MEP and encouraged him to encourage the other MEPs to reject this nonsense.
I will be interested to see how they, as individuals, vote on July 9th.
So will we all. I’ll even find time to glance away from the Ashes to see the result.
I got the same reply from Julie Girling as Colin Hipwell did – I thought it was pretty favourable.
One other of the 6 SW MEPS acknowledged my message.
Have yet to hear from the other four!
They’re all coming in, one by one. Some are quicker to respond than others.
I have written to my Yorkshire and Humber MEPs asking them to vote against the proposal and instead extend the Freedom of Panorama to all EU states.
Thanks to Christopher Clay for the link to Julia Reda’s piece on this which gives a bit of balance compared to some of the press this has been receiving – there’s also a blog post by one of my MEPs, Richard Corbett, on this subject which is worth a look:
http://www.richardcorbett.org.uk/absurd-eu-photography-madness-is-damp-squib/
The quote at the end regarding photography of the Angel of the North is particularly amusing!
Another detailed reply from William Dartmouth:
He says (in full):
Dear Roger Downham,
Thank you for your email.
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 public places.
46. Considers that the commercial use of photographs, video footage or other images of works which are permanently located in physical public places should always be subject to prior authorisation from the authors or any proxy 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 states enjoys the so-called Freedom of Panorama, which allows anyone to publish photographs, documentary films and other works depicting public places without restriction.
It was anticipated that Freedom of Panorama would become universal across Europe.
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 everyday activities as sharing one’s holiday pictures on social media was anachronistic 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, by adopting the most restrictive amendment on the question of Freedom of Panorama.
As a consequence of this absurd proposal, restricting the Freedom of Panorama in Europe restricted to non-commercial use only would see many internet sites having to comb through their content to expunge anything which offended this new proposal. Wikipedia, for example, would have to expend huge resources to remove anything which did not comply.
This would involve many tens of thousands of images of public places in Europe.
It might be thought that a restriction of Freedom of Panorama for commercial use may only prove a problem for companies seeking to make money by selling photographs. In practice, the distinction between commercial and non-commercial is much more complicated.
If you upload a holiday picture to Facebook, an individual does not make any profit from that.
By agreeing, however, to the terms of service of Facebook, which state
• that you are giving permission to Facebook to use your picture commercially (Section 9.1 of Facebook’s Terms of Service), and
• that you have cleared all the necessary rights in order to do so (5.1 of Facebook’s Terms of Service)
In effect, if the commercial use of photographs depicting a public building requires a licence from the architect or other creator, it may then be your responsibility to find out
• whether the building is still protected by copyright (that is whether the architect died more than 70 years ago) and
• who actually owns the rights today
At that point one would have to conclude a licence agreement with the rights holder or responsible collecting society that explicitly allows the commercial use of the picture by Facebook before you can legally upload your holiday pictures to Facebook.
The same applies for any other social network and/or commercial image hosting sites that typically draft their terms of service in a way that protects them from liability.
A restriction to Freedom of Panorama to non-commercial use would therefore bring millions of Europeans into conflict with copyright law over their perfectly harmless, everyday online usage. In some respects, violating copyright is not only a matter of civil law but also of criminal law.
Clearly this is a completely absurd and impractical proposal: indeed it may be wholly unenforceable in practice, which is another reason not to pass it. UKIP will oppose Paragraph 46 of the Reda Report now before the European Parliament.
This is typical incompetent, ill-thought out and unnecessary legislation. It will destroy an explicit British freedom guaranteed in our copyright legislation for over 100 years. Until now, everyone in Britain has been free to stand in a public place and take photographs of any monument or building they chose.
The only sure-fire way to stop the EU imposing silly laws upon us is to ‘Say No’ to the EU at every turn.
Very best William Dartmouth UKIP MEP
________________________________________
S that’s another one agin it!
Another reply om behalf of Molly Scott Cato: in full:-
Thank you for getting in contact on the important issue of “Freedom of Panorama”- the right to publish pictures of public buildings and artworks without restriction. Molly has asked me to respond on her behalf.
The European Commission will soon prepare new legislation on copyright, in order to update the 10-year old Information Society Directive. The European Parliament’s report (also known as the Copyright Evaluation Report) expresses the view of the Parliament on these reforms, and is drafted by Julia Reda MEP, who sits within the Greens-EFA Group in the European Parliament. You can see Julia’s quick summary of this report and the proceedingshere, and herblog postexplains the negotiations within Parliament so far.
This report recognises that copyright reform is urgently required to facilitate access to knowledge and culture for all people in Europe. It calls on the Commission to consider a wide variety of measures to bring copyright law up to speed with changing realities.
A key measure recommended in the draft report was that Freedom of Panorama should be brought to all EU member states. For majority of EU member states, Freedom of Panorama in already in place; only a minority currently require the permission of the architect or right holder of the public artwork before publication. Alongside my Green colleagues in the European Parliament, I strongly support the public’s right to create and share images and photographs without the threat of having to compensate for use of copyright. As such, I support Julia Reda’s original proposal that Freedom of Panorama should be applied to all EU member states.
The Legal Affairs Committee voted and passed an amended version of this report on 16thJune. You can see Julia’s speech following the Committee votehere. Unfortunately, one approved amendment, tabled by a French liberal MEP Jean-Marie Cavada, stated that commercial use of reproductions of works in public spaces should require express permission of right holders. This would restrict existing rights across many EU member states. According to this proposal, any Freedom of Panorama that is not restricted to non-commercial use should be removed. The problem is that the distinction between commercial and non-commercial is very complicated and could potentially bring millions of Europeans into conflict with copyright law – this is completely contrary to the original intentions of the reforms. Molly opposes this amendment, which she believes is overly restrictive, unworkable and contrary to the original intentions of this reform.
In the Committee, this amendment was adopted with the support of the European Peoples’ Party (EPP), as well as the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) – the group in which Labour MEPs sit. I recommend, if you have not already done so, that you contact these representatives and make your views clearly known, ahead of the 9thJuly vote in next week’s plenary session. It is here that we will have the opportunity to remove this damaging amendment.
Please rest assured that Molly will be representing her constituents in the South West by voting to remove Jean-Marie Cavada’s restrictive and outdated amendment, instead supporting Julia Reda’s original intentions for Freedom of Panorama in these reforms.
I hope this outlines Molly’s position on this subject, thank you for making contact in this important matter. You can find out more about Molly’s work in the European Parliament at http://www.mollymep.org.uk.
Kind regards
Alex Machin
Constituency Coordinator
0117 916 6598
Constituency Office of Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for South West England and Gibraltar
Another reply, from Dr Julia Reid PhD MEP (UKIP South West & Gibraltar)
I won’t copy this one, as it’s more or less identical with the one from William Dartmouth (above).
But it seems like another one who’s agin it!
It’s the suave and patronising “Not to worry, this won’t affect your holiday snaps,” that irritates me, followed by “it’s about copyright over commercial images.” That’s EXACTLY what we at fotoLibra, on behalf of our contributors, are concerned about. So it’s OK to share photographs of streetscapes — but it might NOT be OK to sell them? Not acceptable.
This is undoubtedly the stupidest law that anyone has proposed in a long time. Tourism is a huge moneymaker for Europe. Tourists carry cameras and take pictures of themselves in front of famous monuments and buildings. Who would travel to Europe if they can’t take photos of the unique and wonderful buildings, monuments, and architecture? If that law passes I guess I will have to take my expensive DSLR and lenses someplace else, like Uganda, who wants people to come and take photos and has photo safaris and is hospitable to visitors, and will not arrest them for taking a photo in a public space.
And when you do, Vern, please remember to delete your camera’s time and place EXIF data in your high-end DSLR so poachers can’t find out where the animals you photograph are roaming.
I’ve written to my MP (& MEPs) pointing out that having looked through some of their literature and web photos they too will instantly be criminalised (not sure if that means they must instantly stand down from parliament)
Right! Can anyone take a photograph of the Chiltern Hundreds?
I have quite a few pictures of the Angel of the North…..If the bill is passed, if I prove I took the picture before the bill came into force have I still broken the law?
Utter b****cks….. please excuse my French
Remember English Heritage told us to take down our photographs of Stonehenge, and when we started a mild protest they instantaneously backed down — and even issued an apology!
I have emailed my (South West) MEPs
Thank you Peter.
Reply from one MEP:
DARTMOUTH William
08:52 (3 minutes ago)
to me
Dear Derek Metson,
Thank you for your email.
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 public places.
46. Considers that the commercial use of photographs, video footage or other images of works which are permanently located in physical public places should always be subject to prior authorisation from the authors or any proxy 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 states enjoys the so-called Freedom of Panorama, which allows anyone to publish photographs, documentary films and other works depicting public places without restriction.
It was anticipated that Freedom of Panorama would become universal across Europe.
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 everyday activities as sharing one’s holiday pictures on social media was anachronistic 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, by adopting the most restrictive amendment on the question of Freedom of Panorama.
As a consequence of this absurd proposal, restricting the Freedom of Panorama in Europe restricted to non-commercial use only would see many internet sites having to comb through their content to expunge anything which offended this new proposal. Wikipedia, for example, would have to expend huge resources to remove anything which did not comply.
This would involve many tens of thousands of images of public places in Europe.
It might be thought that a restriction of Freedom of Panorama for commercial use may only prove a problem for companies seeking to make money by selling photographs. In practice, the distinction between commercial and non-commercial is much more complicated.
If you upload a holiday picture to Facebook, an individual does not make any profit from that.
By agreeing, however, to the terms of service of Facebook, which state
. that you are giving permission to Facebook to use your picture commercially (Section 9.1 of Facebook’s Terms of Service), and
. that you have cleared all the necessary rights in order to do so (5.1 of Facebook’s Terms of Service)
In effect, if the commercial use of photographs depicting a public building requires a licence from the architect or other creator, it may then be your responsibility to find out
. whether the building is still protected by copyright (that is whether the architect died more than 70 years ago) and
. who actually owns the rights today
At that point one would have to conclude a licence agreement with the rights holder or responsible collecting society that explicitly allows the commercial use of the picture by Facebook before you can legally upload your holiday pictures to Facebook.
The same applies for any other social network and/or commercial image hosting sites that typically draft their terms of service in a way that protects them from liability.
A restriction to Freedom of Panorama to non-commercial use would therefore bring millions of Europeans into conflict with copyright law over their perfectly harmless, everyday online usage. In some respects, violating copyright is not only a matter of civil law but also of criminal law.
Clearly this is a completely absurd and impractical proposal: indeed it may be wholly unenforceable in practice, which is another reason not to pass it. UKIP will oppose Paragraph 46 of the Reda Report now before the European Parliament.
This is typical incompetent, ill-thought out and unnecessary legislation. It will destroy an explicit British freedom guaranteed in our copyright legislation for over 100 years. Until now, everyone in Britain has been free to stand in a public place and take photographs of any monument or building they chose.
The only sure-fire way to stop the EU imposing silly laws upon us is to ‘Say No’ to the EU at every turn.
Very best William Dartmouth UKIP MEP
—–Original Message—–
From: Derek Metson [mailto:derekmetson123@gmail.com]
Sent: 06 July 2015 17:59
To: DARTMOUTH William
Subject: Letter from your constituent Derek Metson
Just got another reply from a UKIP MEP. They are all using the same standard wording. This proposed legislation gives them more ammunition for their aim to get out of the EU. I think bureaucrats and politicians will think up ridiculous rules and regulations whether they are in Brussels, London, or a local mayor elected by about 5% of the electorate. Good government is more important than where it is based. When do we get some??
To be fair, the UKIP MEPs have taken to this like ducks to water; it’s much more important for them to lambast the institution than it is to work constructively on improving the lot of their constituents.
Thank you to everyone who wrote to their representatives, and thank you to all the MEPs who took the trouble to reply. I am delighted that the response is universally against this restrictive proposal, and as a long-term EU supporter I can only shake my head in disbelief at the amount of time this futile suggestion has wasted. But the vote has not yet been taken. We are still not in the clear, despite the unanimous condemnation.
Another reply from MEP – Labour this time:
Clare Moody
13:37 (1 hour ago)
to me
07 July 2015 Our Ref: CM/TW/METS01001/
Dear Derek
Thank you very much for your email about the vote this Thursday on the Reda Report on Copyright.
An amendment has been made to an own-initiative report that is simply an examination by an MEP of the state of play in the implementation of the 2001 Information Society Directive. Therefore the current document has no legal effect, but I fully understand your concerns. The Labour Party will vote against any amendment which negatively affects the current UK provisions on Freedom of Panorama.
The European Commission will propose a wide-ranging copyright reform by the end of this year, and the European Parliament has been at the forefront of keeping the debate going on the Freedom of Panorama and other issues.
Labour MEPs are committed to ensuring that the Commission, when proposing its copyright reform, takes on board the views of creators, industry and consumers so that we can take forward a copyright system which works fairly for all. This includes enhanced rights for creators of cultural content, and increased possibility for portability of services and access to cross-border content.
I hope this answers your concerns.
With best wishes
Clare Moody
Labour MEP for the South West and Gibraltar
01305 858285
http://www.claremoodymep.com
Twitter @ClareMoodyMEP Facebook: ClareMoodyMEP
The reply to me from Clare Moody was identical, which saves me copying it!
But if “the current document has no legal effect”, have we all been worrying needlessly?
But I don’t trust the EU any further than I can throw it, so its a good thing to keep them on their toes!
Green MEPs response:
Re: Freedom of Panorama
Inbox
x
CLAYTON Harriet
15:00 (15 minutes ago)
to me
Good afternoon,
Thank you for your email to Molly Scott Cato on the important issue of Freedom of Panorama (the right to publish pictures of public buildings and artworks without restriction), to which she has asked me to reply on her behalf. I wish to inform you of Molly and the Greens’ position on this matter, in advance of the vote this Thursday 9th July.
The European Commission will soon prepare new legislation on copyright, in order to update the 10-year old Information Society Directive. The European Parliament’s report (also known as the Copyright Evaluation Report) expresses the view of the Parliament on these reforms, and is drafted by Julia Reda MEP, who sits within the Greens-EFA Group in the European Parliament. You can see Julia’s quick summary of this report and the proceedings here, and her blog post explains the negotiations within Parliament so far.
This report recognises that copyright reform is urgently required to facilitate access to knowledge and culture for all people in Europe. It calls on the Commission to consider a wide variety of measures to bring copyright law up to speed with changing realities.
A key measure recommended in the draft report was that Freedom of Panorama should be brought to all EU member states. For majority of EU member states, Freedom of Panorama in already in place; only a minority currently require the permission of the architect or right holder of the public artwork before publication. Alongside my Green colleagues in the European Parliament, Molly strongly supports the public’s right to create and share images and photographs without the threat of having to compensate for use of copyright. As such, Molly supports Julia Reda’s original proposal that Freedom of Panorama should be applied to all EU member states.
The Legal Affairs Committee voted and passed an amended version of this report on 16th June. You can see Julia’s speech following the Committee vote here. Unfortunately, one approved amendment, tabled by a French liberal MEP Jean-Marie Cavada, stated that commercial use of reproductions of works in public spaces should require express permission of right holders. This would restrict existing rights across many EU member states. According to this proposal, any Freedom of Panorama that are not restricted to non-commercial use should be removed. The problem is that the distinction between commercial and non-commercial is very complicated and could potentially bring millions of Europeans into conflict with copyright law – this is completely contrary to the original intentions of the reforms. Molly and the Greens oppose this amendment, which is overly restrictive, unworkable and contrary to the original intentions of this reform.
In the Committee, this amendment was adopted with the support of the European Peoples’ Party (EPP), as well as the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) – the group in which Labour MEPs sit. I recommend, if you have not already done so, that you contact these representatives and make your views clearly known, ahead of the 9th July vote in this week’s plenary session. Here we will have the opportunity to remove this damaging amendment.
Please rest assured that Molly will be representing her constituents in the South West by voting to remove Jean-Marie Cavada’s restrictive and outdated amendment, instead supporting Julia Reda’s original intentions for Freedom of Panorama in these reforms.
I hope this outlines Molly’s position on this subject, and would like to thank you again for making contact. You can find out more about her work in the European Parliament at http://www.mollymep.org.uk.
Kind regards,
Harriet
Harriet Elizabeth Clayton
Assistant to Molly Scott Cato
Green MEP for South West England and Gibraltar
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Another MEPs reply:
GIRLING Julie
15:38 (2 hours ago)
to me
Dear Constituent
Thank you for writing to me about the draft report relating to EU copyright rules and in particular freedom of panorama. Please forgive my standard email but having received many, many emails from concerned constituents I wanted to get my response to you as quickly as possible.
Freedom of panorama is not only a long established rule in the UK but would also be completely impractical restriction. I will therefore oppose any measure that aims to prevent freedom of panorama in the UK.
I thank you again for sharing your concerns, which are certainly well justified, and I look forwarded to voting against such measures when the time comes.
Yours sincerely,
Julie Girling
MEP for the South West of England & Gibraltar
Environment, Public Health & Food Safety
Agriculture and Rural Development
Women’s Rights & Gender Equality
Email: julie.girling@europarl.europa.eu
Tel: 0032 228 45678
Petition here:
European Parliament: Save the Freedom of Photography! #saveFoP @Europarl_EN.
A full house now of 6 MEPs. Reply today from Ashley Fox:
Dear Roger,
Thank you for your email concerning the Julia Reda report on Harmonisation
of Certain Aspects of Copyright and Related Rights in the Information
Society, which my Conservative colleagues and I will be voting on this
Thursday (9th July).
While I welcome many of the ideas included in the report, which support the
creative industry and evidence-based improvements to the current legal
framework, I fully appreciate your concerns about the potential impact of
paragraph 46 of the report. I do not believe there is an argument for EU
harmonisation of the panorama copyright exception, and Member States should
retain flexibility in this area.
I believe that proscriptive legislation would interfere with people’s work,
add unnecessary burdens and alter the status quo in the UK regarding
commercial use exceptions. This is why I will be voting to reject the
provisions in paragraph 46, which would introduce restrictions for
commercial use of photographs, video footage or other images.
Conservative MEPs are fighting to maintain flexibility for EU Member States
to keep existing provisions which work well in this area. Rest assured that
we will therefore not be supporting an EU-approach on this issue or any
amendments which will undermine or alter the UK’s existing Freedom of
Panorama provisions.
Please feel free to contact me again if you have any further questions.
Yours sincerely,
Ashley Fox
Well, I’ve just heard that the motion was voted on YESTERDAY when we we firmly told it would be today (they are politicians after all) and the result was a decisive majority for preserving the freedom of panorama. Even Cavada, the original proposer of the amendment that sought to restrict the right of panorama, asked delegates to vote against it.
Thank you for all your campaigning, support and hard work.
Thank you for alerting us to this.
I emailed all the Scottish MEPs and got supportive responses.
Best wishes
John
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