Although I’m pleased to hear the news today in Peta Pixel and elsewhere that an overwhelming majority of European Members of Parliament voted to a reject a controversial proposal that threatened to restrict the photography of copyrighted buildings and sculptures from public places, I’m not convinced that its passing would have made a great deal of difference to most of us.
According to Petapixel, who on June 20th published a report based on Wikipedia’s Signpost, the proposal that “the commercial use of photographs, video footage or other images of works which are permanently located in physical public places should always be subject to prior authorisation from the authors or any proxy acting for them” would have brought all European countries into line with those, including France and Italy where such laws already exist.
I’ve yet to notice any great outcry among French or Italian photographers at the problems that they face in photographing in their cities, and certainly I’ve never felt encumbered by this aspect of their law. Except in the one case of photographing the Eiffel Tower at night, where apparently the lighting is trademarked, and that is at times enforced. And of course there have sometimes been problems related to quite different issues of privacy.
For the same reason, there are also some problems already in London over the London Eye in commercial photography. While these may mean you would need permission to use it as the background for a fashion shoot, it has never prevented the kind of use that Signpost illustrated in a graphic, of the London Eye seen in a wider view of London landscape.
#NoTTIP – Hands off our democracy
Another ‘No-No’ for commercial photograph in London is of course the Underground roundel, again a trademark. It is almost certainly (at least in two-dimensional form) protected by UK copyright law as also would be billboards, posters, graffiti, murals and all 2D artwork displayed in public. But their incidental inclusion in photographs has never been a problem, and many of us have also published images where murals and graffiti were the main or only subject without comeback.
UK Copyright law explicitly gives us permission to photograph buildings in the public eye, and also sculptures displayed in public. Probably as photographers we are quite pleased that our work, even if visible in public, is still protected along with paintings and drawings.
CETA Trade Deal Threat to Democracy
When I once was one of the volunteers who helped to run a small non-profit magazine covering the visual arts I found a great difference between the attitude of photographers and people making paintings and drawings in regard to the reproduction of their work in reviews. While artists were keen to have their work in print, photographers were sometimes difficult or impossible to persuade – and often requested payment although we were investing heavily in them out of our pockets by reviewing the work.
In a way it’s understandable. In publishing a painting or drawing we were only actually publishing a photograph of a painting or drawing, while in publishing a photograph, you are in effect publishing the real thing. A photograph of a photograph is a photograph.
The outcry against the proposed law included a petition signed by 540,000 people around the world. I’m pleased that the MEPs have rejected it, but sorry that they have so far failed to stop something far more important, passing a resolution on the secretly negotiated EU-US trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
The fight on TTIP is far from over yet, and the vote was passed despite a petition signed by over 2.3m European citizens, who realise, as War on Want Executive Director John Hilary stated, that: “TTIP offers a nightmare vision of a world sold into corporate slavery.” Rather more important an issue than a copyright principle that would probably have had little effect on 99.99% of the photographs we take of cities. Unless you are happy at being a slave who can take photographs.
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My London Diary : Buildings of London : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
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