Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-07- 01/In the media From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia < Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost​ | 2015-07-01 ← BACK TO 1 July 2015 VIEW LATEST ISSUE CONTENTS IN THE MEDIA EU freedom of panorama; Nehru outrage; BBC apology By Gamaliel, Jheald, Andreas Kolbe, and utcursch European Parliament decision-day approaches on freedom of panorama A week now remains until the vote, expected on 9 July, when the European Parliament will express either its approval, disapproval, or lack of opinion on the question of freedom of panorama in the European Union, and battle lines are being drawn. (See earlier Signpost article "Three weeks to save freedom of panorama in Europe", and review of initial press coverage last week). Following approval at Wikipedia talk:Freedom of Panorama 2015, sitenotice banners have now been activated above articles, warning readers of the over 40,000 images currently on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons of modern buildings and public art that depend on the Freedom of Panorama copyright exception (drawing coverage including from BBC World Service Spanish (http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2015/07/150701_tecnologia_li bertad_panorama_wikipedia_miedo_fotos_lv), as well as an acerbic piece in The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/02/wikipedia_jumps_on_bogus _photo_scare_to_tell_us_the_internet_is_breaking_again/) by frequent Wikipedia critic Andrew Orlowski); while a petition at Change.org supporting freedom of panorama has been steadily growing and (as of 1 July) is now approaching 200,000 signatures. On 2 July, the French MEP Jean-Marie Cavada, who had proposed the text effectively calling for an end to commercial freedom of panorama in the EU, announced that he would no longer be supporting this proposal, and would now be calling on all MEPs to delete it. With the direct threat averted, Dimitar Dimitrov (dimi_z), Wikipedia's person on the spot in Brussels, called for (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? title=Commons%3AFreedom_of_Panorama_2015&type=revision&d iff=164828262&oldid=164819584) the banner campaign to be stood down. Wikipedia is "a U.S. monopoly" ... acting "to the detriment of the entire European cultural sector" The words of MEP Jean-Marie Cavada, set against an image of the European Parliament building in Strasburg, blacked out to demonstrate the current lack of Freedom of Panorama in France, as presented on the blog (https://juliareda.eu/2015/06/who-is-behind-the-attack-on-freedom-of-panorama/) of Julia Reda MEP. Earlier in the week, Cavada, whose text, adopted by the legal affairs committee, proposed 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", had slammed defenders of freedom of panorama (http://jeanmariecavada.eu/ma-position-sur-le-droit-de-panorama/) as acting "under the guise of defending free access to works on behalf of users", when their fight was "actually one conducted primarily to allow US monopolies such as Facebook or Wikimedia to escape the payment of fees to the creators". Cavada's position closely reflects that of the French copyright collecting society ADAGP (http://www.adagp.fr/en), the Society of Authors in the Graphic and Plastic Arts. For ADAGP, the "cultural patrimony" of its members is at stake Rotterdam Centraal station ... ... and L'Hemisfèric, Valencia: examples used to highlight consequences of a removal of freedom of panorama (http://www.adagp.fr/en/actuality/urgent-panorama-exception): their rights to be in control of the commercial utilisation of their works, and to refuse to see them modified, misrepresented, or used in the advertising of products or causes of which they disapprove. ADAGP has strongly been pushing a line of "no reuse without remuneration" in the Parliament, and a key current objective of the society is to negotiate an agreement with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest, Picasa and others similar to the arrangements that Google has with music labels, to acknowledge and pay out for copyrights in user-taken images of buildings and sculptures uploaded to the sites. The society retains approximately 25% of the gross of copyright licenses that it administers. According to ADAGP, it believes that between 10– 20% of image rights, currently generating net payments of between 3 and 6 million euros per year, relate to sculptures or buildings in France that would be affected by freedom of panorama. This would also represent a loss of income to ADAGP itself of between about 1 and 2 million euros per year. The society has been circulating a Q&A flyer (http://www.authorsocieties.eu/uploads/GESAC%20Panorama%20 exception_Flyer_June15.pdf) on the "Panorama Exception" to MEPs, to which the Wikimedia Brussels team has prepared a rebuttal. Some of the (https://twitter.com/heald_j/status/616331893332701184) maps (https://twitter.com/heald_j/status/616332873050759168) used by ADAGP have also been called into question. According to Cavada, Wikipedia's insistence on providing images "in high definition format, open for editing, with the ability for use for commercial purposes" was "a deliberate attempt to avoid paying rights to authors, heirs or collecting societies", and contended that MEP Julia Reda's original proposals "especially for the benefit of those service providers" would "do nothing more for consumers, but would formalize the pursuit of their activities with impunity to the detriment of the entire European cultural and creative sector". (26 June) In a rejoinder (http://blog.wikimedia.fr/la-liberte- de-panorama-au-service-des-biens- communs-7650) posted on 1 July, Wikimédia France hit back that the bracketing with Facebook showed that Cavada "completely misses the collaborative movement and the commons", and added that The Haus Le Corbusier on the Weissenhof Estate, Stuttgart, We understand why Germany – a country with rightsholders like to have freedom of panorama – used their works on Wikipedia. by Wikimédia France to Without the possibility of illustrate its response commercial reuse, we are a great free advertising brochure, so long as Wikipedia changes the rules that have made ​it the world cultural site by accepting [non-reusable] non-free content, according to the wishes of these private companies. The stakes are clear enough. Freedom of panorama can lose some income to certain authors or assigns, which is fairly easy to calculate. But it can also generate economic activity, by removing obstacles, including for the transformation of works and "unforeseen" reuse. The impact is more difficult to assess because all the possibilities and therefore earnings are not known at the time the decision to open the valves is taken. Gains are not only economic, but also societal. The free dissemination of knowledge is not just about money. The possibility of commercial re-use and economic innovation that may result are for us a way to reach our true goal: improving the well-being of all, through better dissemination of knowledge. For herself, Reda, writing in a blog-post (https://juliareda.eu/2015/06/who-is-behind-the-attack-on-freedom- of-panorama/) (1 July), considered that the Cavada proposal should not be seen as the product of an evil lobby, but rather was symptomatic of a general approach by the MEPs on the legal committee, [extending] the same attitude and convictions they apply to all copyright reform issues ... siding entirely with existing art, made by the few lucky enough to profit from yesterday’s business models, at the expense of the new and independent, which modern technology and connectivity enables the many to create and share. She also condemned a tendency of much of the media that she considered had jumped on this as an opportunity to "bash the European Union": Don't blame the EU for your MEPs: ... I want to make it very clear: This [horrible] idea was hatched by representatives elected by the people, and passed (so far) by representatives elected by the people. No shadowy bureaucrats were involved. If you want to prevent situations like this one, elect better representatives – and stay involved. Contending views of freedom of panorama were presented by Wikimedia's Dimitrov (http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/07/16/our- man-in-brussels-dimitar-dimitrov/) and ADAGP, together with five other witnesses, on the morning of 2 July (agenda (http://www.polcms.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/upload/605c5b59 -843d-403f-9424- 6ea155f2c79b/Draft%20agenda%20meeting%202%20July%202015- uploaded.doc)) at a hearing of the working group on intellectual property rights and copyright reform (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/juri/subject- files.html?id=20150128CDT00182) of the legal affairs committee of the European Parliament, with Jean-Marie Cavada in the chair. Unfortunately it would seem that the meeting was not covered by broadcast streaming or recording, although some slide-packs may be available after the event. Meanwhile, with the deadline for amendments (1 July) having passed, it is now (https://twitter.com/senficon/status/616263134626582528) confirmed (https://twitter.com/c3o/status/616265093144297472) that the Parliament will be faced with a three-way choice in the vote itself next week: to "recognise" Freedom of Panorama (proposed (http://www.marietjeschaake.eu/2015/07/safeguarding-the- freedom-of-panorama/) by the Dutch liberal MEP Marietje Schaake along with other members (https://www.facebook.com/MeinPanoramaMeineFreiheit/pho