Hello everyone,

It is a fact that for many African countries especially, a common thing like a selfie with a national statue can be copyright infringement.

For some time now Wikimedia Ghana UG https://wmghug.wordpress.com/has been learning what it needs to do to have Freedom of Panorama introduced in Ghana.

Today we are happy to announce that following a session https://accra18.re-publica.com/en/session/freedom-panorama-why-free-knowledge-matters-africa on Freedom of Panorama with Douglas Scott of Wikipedia ZA at re:publica Accra conference https://accra18.re-publica.com/en, we have put up a petition on change.org for the President of Ghana to put his weight behind this.

Before you sign the petition you'll need to know this:

*Problem:*

Ghana's Copyright Act of 2003, Act 690 at the moment restricts Freedom of Panorama. Because of the restriction of Freedom of Panorama taking a photo or video, or creating images or copies of monuments, buildings, sculptures and other permanently public artwork including those belonging to the state could be a crime.

*Our Request *

We are petitioning his excellency and our minister for the arts to have Parliament revisit our Copyright Act of 2003, Act 690 and grant Freedom of Panorama.

*About Fair Dealing In Ghana*

We have put a preamble to our FOP research as adviced by a lawyer here http://bit.ly/FOPPreamble to explain the status quo in Ghana.

*Why the president?*

Though it is Ghana's Parliament that would amend the act, the lawyer and the presidential staffer who is our liaison has recommended we channel this through the presidency instead.

The Chief of Staff is ready to receive this on the president's behalf

Sign the petition here https://www.change.org/p/h-e-nana-akufo-addo-please-introduce-freedom-of-panorama-in-ghana .

And while you are there, if you have questions, suggestions, concerns, even typos to report, I'll gladly handle them before we print it out for delivery.

–– Regards Sandister Tei | Curator Media & Journalism, re:publica Accra | Citi FM/TV | Wikimedia Ghana UG representative + co – founder | Purple People

m: +23320266290 tw: @SandisterTei https://twitter.com/SandisterTei ig: @s.andister https://www.instagram.com/s.andister/

re:publica – The most inspiring festival for the digital society. See you in Accra December 14-15 2018! Web https://accra18.re-publica.com/ | Facebook https://www.facebook.com/rpAccra/ | Twitter http://www.twitter.com/republica

republica GmbH | Schönhauser Allee 6-7 | 10119 Berlin HRB 137440 B | AG Berlin-Charlottenburg | Geschäftsführer: Andreas Gebhard