According to Numerama, http://www.numerama.com/politique/167119-photographies-doeuvres-la-liberte-d... the adopted French text reads:
« reproductions et représentations d’œuvres architecturales et de sculptures, placées en permanence sur la voie publique, réalisées par des personnes physiques, à l’exclusion de tout usage à caractère directement ou indirectement commercial ».
It would be useful to know a bit more about the debate, and any legislative discussion about how the text was to be interpreted, in terms of knowing how to present it to other actors (eg other member states we may be talking to). Some questions in particular:
(1) Buildings
Was there much discussion specifically about buildings, rather than public art? Did any architects go on the record?
If Dimi is right, and and the likely expectation for a proposal from the Commission is for a harmonised minimum exception along these French lines, but with member states able to go further, is there any possibility of getting COM to suggest a broader exception for buildings?
How strongly is it likely that the French would resist a making the exception for buildings broader?
Were the pros and cons for buildings specifically discussed in the debate? (In which case the French could say, look our country has only just discussed this at length, including buildings, and decided against a broader exception) Or were buildings not much mentioned, which would make any case against FoP for buildings rather weaker.
(2) "usage by natural persons, excluding any usage of a character either directly or indirectly commercial"
Is there any clarity on what this might mean?
To expand on some examples I recently put the the UK Intellectual Property Office, where would this leave, eg:
* use by a university lecturer, for example to teach their class? Or in an academic publication? Or in a web article on the university website, discussing a particular architectural movement, or the change in character of the built environment of a particular city? Or on a university webpage describing a particular course they were teaching?
* use in an individual's blog, that they sometimes use to promote their business -- eg a blog about a local town, and local town planning, if eg that individual was an architect or a lawyer, who designed buildings, or could be engaged to make planning representations?
* use in a blog that carries advertising?
* use in a blog hosted by a commercial service (eg Blogger)? Or posts on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Flickr -- where the individual posters may be noncommercial, but where arguably all content posted to such platforms tends to add to the platforms' success and the operators' bottom line?
Was there any clarity (and/or comment from any legislators) on examples similar to any of the above?
(3) Mutual recognition
Something I have suggested to the UK IPO is that there is a clear disparity -- creating at the very least uncertainty and anxiety, and very possibly some real legal risk -- because current exceptions are territorial, but "making available" (eg putting works on line) tends to be cross-border and international.
I suggested that "one way forward might be for countries to volunteer to agree to add a mutual recognition of national exceptions into their laws -- so that the UK exception would continue to apply *in the UK* for a snapshot taken in France and brought home by a British holidaymaker; and French law would continue to apply *in France* to photographs taken in France; but French law would also agree to apply the UK exception in France for a photograph that had been taken in the UK."
(so => no action could be taken in France against a photo of the London Eye put on the internet that would have been legal in England; but journalists can still rely on the UK s62 exception for pieces to camera recorded in front of the Strasbourg parliament, so long as broadcast in the UK).
Is this something we should be asking the Commission to go for (as common sense, and reflective of very widespread current practice), or is it too complicated to explain (and/or legislate?)
(4) Still going for full freedom of panorama ?
After a proposal comes out of COM, are we still expecting to campaign in the Parliament for a full, Union-wide FoP exception? (Something very likely to be proposed by eg Julia Reda)
Or, if there are particular things that COM were prepared to include in the COM proposal, is that a compromise we might be prepared to sign up to and support in the Parliament, and not argue too hard for anything less restrictive, so long as it didn't come under attack from anybody arguing too hard for anything more restrictive? (The kind of pre-negotiated compromise that COM likes to broker).
Do we have info or thoughts in any of these four areas ?
-- James.
On 28/04/2016 13:29, aktron@centrum.cz wrote:
Hey,
These are great news. Now the question is... wouldn't be an idea for "harmonized minimum" horribly misused? Is there a threat like that?
I hope I will get more info on this change in French Senate, so I can turn it into an article on our blog ;-) So we will have some positive news, aside of that legal case in Sweden.
Aktron
Od: Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov dimitar.parvanov.dimitrov@gmail.com Komu: Publicpolicy Group for Wikimedia publicpolicy@lists.wikimedia.org Datum: 28.04.2016 12:57 Předmět: [Publicpolicy] FoP in France (albeit NC)
Hello, everybody!
The Senate in Paris just agreed to pass a new exception into French copyright law. They agreed on the importance of Freedom of Panorama, but only for non-commercial purposes. The text reads "œuvres en permanence sur la voie publique réalisées par des particuliers à des fins non lucratives". A large part of the discussion was revolving around the question whether "voie publique" and "particuliers" and "non lucrative" are terms that provide sufficient legal security. As in Brussels, in Paris it was the visual artists (ADAGP) and Wikimedia that ran the campaign. The three French architects associations remained surprinsingly quiet. One major change is the official position of the French government. Initially they were against any new copyright exception. Now Minister Lemaire confirmed that the French government had changed its position and regards the FoP exception favourably in its NC version. Well, it is not the ultimate win, but we managed to establish an new copyright exception in France, which is huge. Thanks to Myriam, Nathalie, Samuel and everyone else at Wikimédia France for running such an efficient and well coordinated campaign. The game in Brussels has greatly changed with this, as the main opposing force was indeed the French government. A possible European solution could now be to stablish a harmonised minimum FoP while allowing Member States to go further. An interesting question for us would be if this FoP baseline could get rid of the antiquity laws. Cheers,Dimi
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