New subject: Reminder: Legal IRC Office Hour starts in about three hours.

19 Apr 2016

TLDR:

What: IRC chat with members of Wikimedia Foundation legal

Topic: Freedom of panorama

When: Tuesday, April 19 at 11:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time / 18:00 UTC

Reminder: We can’t do legal advice.

Hi all,

We'd like to remind you of the return of Legal Team IRC office hours,
starting today, April 19 at 11:00 AM PDT / 18:00 UTC! We’re planning to
host these once every 3 months or so going forward.

IRC office hours provide an opportunity for members of the Wikimedia
communities to chat directly with members of the Wikimedia Foundation legal
team on topics of interest including public policy, legal issues facing the
Wikimedia movement, and what you can do to get involved. Please keep in
mind that under California law we can’t give out legal advice, so rather
than giving out legal advice, we will talk about the Wikimedia Foundation’s
stance on issues.

For this format, we’ll begin at 11:00 by doing a brief introduction and
then start taking questions from everyone that’s present. We’ll aim to have
a few people on at the same time to be able to respond faster and to
discuss different aspects of the issues.

For our first office hour, we’re planning to discuss the freedom of
panorama (FoP). With the recent decision in Sweden
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/04/04/strike-against-freedom-panorama/>,
holding that Wikimedia Sweden's website/database was in violation of
Swedish copyright law for making available on the internet photographs of
artwork permanently situated in public areas, FoP has become more pressing
than ever. We believe that the ability for members of the public to
photograph public monuments and landscapes is a fundamental part of free
expression. We plan to raise this issue to the European Commission this
summer, and need your help to let them know that it’s important. This first
one of a series of IRC office hours will be a great opportunity to exchange
thoughts about it.

If you have questions that you would like to discuss during the office hour,
you can add them on Meta Wiki here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_Team_IRC_Office_Hours>.