Anyone Hear About This? If Law Passes, Most Photography As We Know It....

Well, I doubt they will pass that. There will be such an uproar, they will drop it fast.

I mean, come on, most of architects of the historic buildings in Europe have been dead for a long time....unless those structures are exempt.

I know the pyramide du Louvre is copyrighted and so is the lighting at night on the Eiffel Tower, but all buildings? Come on....

I had plans on photographing Europe in the near future...I would not go if they passed that law! That law would hurt tourism in a big way!!

i am breathing easy for now (i live in austria).
this is from the eu-parliament link in the petition:
"Freedom of panorama
On the “freedom of panorama” principle, such as the right to create and share images and photographs of public buildings, the text cautions that the commercial use of such reproductions should require authorization from the rightholder."

not at all the same as a ban prohibiting taking pictures. licensing street photography for commercial advertising purposes or making such images available on products such as mugs, pillows etc is already a very hairy business if you are not hiding your head in the sand, so not much would change there. offering your photo as an art print will probably be ok but one will have to wait and see.

Not again.... try enforcing this one :-)

they tried that in the US, something about not being able to take pictures of farms. but in reality it was a very specific rule about the backyard of farms and animals or something. and in any case i don't think it went through.

thing is, if you ban photos in a country - no one will visit it. and without that, they have no tourism which is big business. plus they would have to monitor people doing it and the people online across the world would have to be dealt with.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

It's happening here at our National Parks too. So sad.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/taking-photograph-faithful-summer-land-jail/story?id=31134562

"Under the law's broad framework, anyone who enters "open land" defined as "land outside the exterior boundaries of any incorporated city, town, subdivision" with the intent to collect data without explicit permission to do so, could face up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine. Burt called the law "a very dangerous precedent."

These things don't just "happen". An apathetic public allows it to happen. First by electing idiots. And second by not becoming involved. Liking something on Facebook or arguing about it on a forum doesn't do squat. To make your voice heard you need to call or write your representives and let them know you will be voting their butts out of office if they pass stupid legislation.

We need some "I'm a photographer and I vote" bumper stickers.

.....

The Wyoming one that effects Yellowstone is just stupid and if it ever came to a photographer being charged under the stupidity of the law the court would rule it invalid and hopefully make the state pick up the legal fees of the poor tourist harassed by the state.

Basically this law was passed to protect polluters of federal land. Unreal.

We would all agree that there are some really dumb laws on the books in most if not all countries.

Never underestimate the voting electorate to pass really dumb laws and/or support really dumb politicians that write them and push them through. Tat is how they all got there.

The is no doubt in my mind that there will some sort of fee or fines for taking picture in the National Parks in the not to distant future. Then the states will follow.

They will just keep pushing and making trade off until if finally happen. It will probably be stuck on some bill that nothing what so ever to do with it and you will never hear about it until it is law.

The politicians see money to be had here. And it will be had. That is what politicians do.

Anyone ever think as little as 5 or 10 years ago it would be ruled illegal for kids ware a shirt to school that had an American flag on it?

Unpopular laws are imposed on us all the time.

Well, thanks to the petition, this idea got kicked out last week, and all things return to normal....

https://www.change.org/p/european-parliament-save-the-freedom-of-photography-savefop-europarl-en/u/11358071

Rob.

It's happening here at our National Parks too. So sad.

Gregory, don't fall for slanted stories like this. They want people to get worked up, and guess what? It works!

What ABC published as "news" couldn't be farther from the truth. Totally sensationalized and for no other reason than to gain ratings.

It didn´t pass the EU parliament!

http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/panoramafreiheit-im-eu-parlament-verteidigt-a-1042817.html (Sorry, article in German)

Colin Utz
http://colinutzphotography.com