Today we received some bad news. The Swedish Supreme Court ruled according to the will of
the Visual Copyright Society in Sweden, regarding images of public art online, more
specifically in the case of our service Offentligkonst.se, a service of ours that is using
images from Wikimedia Commons.
This interpretation means that Freedom of Panorama became restricted and that the public
space shrunk. It is a great loss for our projects. Next we will talk to our lawyers and
see what our remaining legal options are. Intensive efforts to influence our elected
officials to change the outdated and problematic clauses in the law are likely to be
initiated during the year.
We appreciate any lessons learned that exist regarding the work you guys have done in your
countries.
Some useful links (in Swedish):The legal argumentation from the court:
http://www.hogstadomstolen.se/Domstolar/hogstadomstolen/Avgoranden/2016/201…
press release:
http://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/pressreleases/hoegsta-domstolen-vaeljer-att-kr…
time-line of what has happened:
https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Offentligkonst.se/St%C3%A4mning
Best,
John- - - -John AnderssonWikimedia SverigeProject Manager
Phone: +46(0)73-3965189Email: john.andersson(a)wikimedia.seSkype: johnandersson86