The bitter fight for Freedom of Panorama ended on July 9 with an overwhelming majority of MEPs voting against the controversial EU plan to ban taking photographs of EU landmarks and public places without prior permission and making it illegal to publish the pictures without proper authorisation. On July 9, the European Parliament rejected the new copyright law that sought to axe Freedom of Photography in Europe.
European Parliament defends freedom of panorama and calls for copyright reform @GreensEP @Senficon http://t.co/YV6p7nM2Ai
— Keith Taylor MEP (@GreenKeithMEP) July 9, 2015
A spokesman for German MEP Julia Reda, who submitted a report suggesting that “freedom of panorama” standards should be unified throughout the EU, told Amateur Photographer, “The point on freedom of panorama was deleted decisively, with only 40 out of the 751 MEPs sticking to it. So we managed to deflect the attack on this right – although the Parliament also doesn’t call for its extension to all of Europe.” “Today the European Parliament with a broad majority adopted my copyright evaluation report. The plenary decisively removed the controversial proposal to restrict the so-called Freedom of Panorama, the right to use pictures of public buildings and sculptures without restriction, which had previously been inserted by the Legal Affairs Committee. 
“The parliament has listened to the more than half a million people who have joined me in criticising this proposal. As a result, most Europeans will continue to be able to post selfies online and view photos of famous buildings on Wikipedia unencumbered by copyright. We must now continue to fight for an extension of important copyright exceptions such as this one to all member states,” Reda wrote on her website. Digital rights activists, in an online petition, had urged the members of the European Parliament to “not limit the Freedom of Panorama in any way and instead to bring the Freedom of Panorama to all member states of the EU”.
The petition to European Parliament to save Freedom of Panorama has crossed 500,000 signatures https://t.co/s1uPfEVBB3 #SaveFoP — Creative Commons (@creativecommons) July 8, 2015
What if the proposal was not rejected? “Documentary filmmakers, for example, would have to research the copyright protection status of every building, statue or even graffiti on a public wall depicted in their movies – and seek the permission of each right holder. It’s absurd,” Reda explained.
Wikimedia feared it would have been forced to remove an estimated 40,000 images from Wikipedia if the European Parliament had voted for a rule change. “Freedom of panorama is the unrestricted right to use photographs of public spaces, without infringing the rights of the architect or the visual artist. Wikipedia only uses freely licensed images. Therefore, this valuable exception to copyright is necessary in order to allow Wikipedia to freely depict public spaces on relevant articles… The ‘reform’ would have terrible consequences for the way we share and create culture and knowledge,” Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia co-founder, warned in an article he wrote in The Guardian.
The UK, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Sweden and Spain allow Freedom of Panorama – you can take pictures of cultural works located in public places and use them as you like. In Italy, France, Greece and Belgium, there is no Freedom of Panorama – you have to obtain permission from the copyright holder before publishing or posting images of cultural objects anywhere. Norway and Finland only allow this freedom for images of buildings, not other works like sculptures. The Baltic States, Romania and Bulgaria only permit the use of pictures for non-commercial purposes.
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