The Illegal Map of Swedish Art

[belorn]

Reading the article from the Swedish national radio, the court decision found that wikimedia database of photo has a "commercial value" that can compete with commercial enterprises of the copyright authors who created the public statues or paintings on buildings.

The journalist asked a lawyer if this mean that its illegal now to take a photo of public statues, and the lawyer said that it legal since the law explicitly says so, but it might not be legal to publish it" on the Internet" as that action might be considered to have a commercial value.

In my view, its a bit weird.

[hjnilsson]

This court decision is a result of the change of law that in part was motivated to happened to get piracy back in 2005. When it was amended there were many, many more restrictions placed on digital distribution than before. The law in question explicitly say "Artwork can be depicted if contained in a collection or catalogue, but not in digital form". So a book detailing famous art is allowed, but a website doing the same is not.

This also means it is not illegal to post Facebook photos with a statue. Since clearly that is not a database, just a random photo.

The paragraph in question: https://lagen.nu/1960:729#P24S1]

And the full law: http://rinfo.stage.lagrummet.se//publ/sfs/2005:359/pdf,sv

(This law - 2005:359 - is also the law that added the "data tax" in Sweden of 0,4 kronor per MB.)

[digitalneal]

Wouldn't this mean a Google Map of public statues would be considered of Commercial value and should be removed?

[pilif]

> In my view, its a bit weird.

I think it's a matter of opportunity cost. By giving away an art-finder like this for free, using the pictures of the sculptures, you take away the incentive for commercial provider to do the same thing.

Commercial providers would have to pay money for the pictures and thus, a free app is costing the copyright owner (or the manager of the copyrights) money indirectly.

And even failing that: By publishing this on the internet, even if you are offering it for free and without ads, you still create value for third-parties with this content (carriers, platform owners, whoever is injecting ads into your content, etc), so as monetary value is created with this content, the management agency wants to be paid and if they can't be, then they want the content off the net, so other content might appear where they are getting paid.

At least that's what I believe to be the reasoning.

[quotha]

Is it legal to tweet the picture?!

[jug]

How can it have commercial value if released with a "libre" license?

[kbrosnan]

Lest you think that this is some oddity that does not happen in the US it is an issue in Portland, OR. The Portlandia statue [1] sitting in public display and on a public building. The artist retains copyright. Raymond Kaskey, the sculptor, sued the studio that made Body of Evidence which used the statue in the background of some shots and won. While I can understand the artist's desire that the work of art is respected and the high likelihood that chotchkies and such would not pay to use the likeness. It is at conflict with fair use and parody.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portlandia_(statue)

[dublinben]

Any art paid for with public funds should be in the public domain. It seems like an unfortunate oversight that the artist was allowed to retain copyright here.

[ashmud]

The Devil's Advocate had a statue that resembled another artist's work. Some of the home releases had the statue edited as a result of the legal case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil's_Advocate_%281997_f...

Comparison of the edits:

http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=4057

[doctorOb]

Something similar happened to Naughty Dog, when they used the MBTA Map in "The Last Of Us"[1].

[1] http://transitmap.net/post/53696766419/boston-theft

[awinter-py]

Sony had issues when filming the first spiderman movie; they had to pay likeness rights to landmark buildings (chrysler building, I think) and also had legal trouble over digitally replacing the ads in time square.

[yason]

I am happy to see copyright raising its ugly head in circumstances that might concern the general public as well, not only hackers and hippies in the bit-sharing underground. Maybe in a few decades people will realise it doesn't make any sense. The only thing that remains is that we'll have to stretch this further until it becomes universally absurd.

[driverdan]

Mods: consider switching this from the original blogspam to Wikimedia's blog post: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/04/04/strike-against-freedom...

[JoeAltmaier]

The app provides pictures of art without permission. That part seems clear.

The OP claims 'even when its in a public place and owned by the public'. That part seems odd. It would be good to (be able to) read the decision.

[cooper12]

I think since this is a Wikimedia project, that the images themselves were freely licensed, but Sweden has weak or no Freedom of Panorama, which is where the "public" part would factor in. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_panorama)

edit: I found more details here: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/04/04/strike-against-freedom...

[overlordalex]

There must be some subtly in the law. Or perhaps Sweden has unusual laws about what you can photograph in/from a public space.

That being said, I wonder if an architect could claim an unusual/interesting building as a work of art, and then have it removed from google street view?

[mattmanser]

How long before google replaces your google adwords with the artists if it detects the somewhere on your page you have a photograph of a public place that happens to contain a statue?

[mzs]

I was bored recently and scanned the terms for an amusement park ticket. I gave all rights to my likeness and it was specifically listed that I could not make copies of photos taken by park equipment without explicit permission (I assume when you buy a CD or whatnot you pay for that).

[thomasahle]

Does this also make Goole Street View illegal?

[awinter-py]

Of course, there are other issues with GSV. If I'm watching obscene content inside my house and GSV photographs through my window, thereby displaying the obscene content in public, who is at fault? What if I lay in wait for the street view van and drop my trenchcoat at an opportune moment?

I love these kinds of cases because everyone can sue everyone. In general, the panopticon creates more and more cases where everyone has some blame (and can be arbitrarily hassled by the po).

[vilhelm_s]

No. The decision specifically mentions photos of streets (where artwork is incidentally depicted) as the core purpose of the freedom of panorama law. The decision says that online photo databases were not anticipated by the lawmakers, and therefore should not be considered freedom of panorama.

[hjnilsson]

No. The law in question explicitly allows depictions of building, they are seen as separate from artwork.

[LoSboccacc]

current title "The Illegal Map of Swedish Art " is clickbait. The map is fine, photo of work of art were included in the map and those were found infringing.

[Trombone12]

No, it is the act of pooling images into a database that is the issue. According to the court including the copyleft licensed photos in the database creates value that the creators then have a claim on.

It is however from the ruling not clear exactly how the photos and metadata create value; for instance it seems clear like just hosting all the offending images on a separate service and naming them with guid:s will be perfectly fine so long as the user has to navigate and find the image themselves.

Ruling: http://www.hogstadomstolen.se/Domstolar/hogstadomstolen/Avgo...

[hjnilsson]

Actually, it is the reverse. It is the database (ie. the map) that was found to be illegal. The photos contained within are not. And if they were not assembled into a database, they would all be perfectly legal. This is even explicitly mentioned in the court decision (in swedish): http://www.hogstadomstolen.se/Mer-om-Hogsta-domstolen/Nyhete...

[brashrat]

Who was the plaintiff in this case? The defendant was Wikimedia!

I was curious "who is the plaintiff here" because I didn't see that in the discussion anyplace, so I ran vilhelm_s's helpful link to the decision http://www.hogstadomstolen.se/Domstolar/hogstadomstolen/Avgo...

through translate.google.com and learned to my horror that the defendant in this case was Wikimedia, not some map/app designer.

I could not tell who the plaintiff was, it translates as "Plaintiffs in the district court Image Copyright in Sweden oak. for., 769610-3121 Hornsgatan 103 117 28 Stockholm" I looked at that address on google maps and discovered that it is hard to find the front door of a building in Stockholm.

[vilhelm_s]

BUS (http://bus.se/en ). It's a copyright collecting society. That is, if you own the copyright in a visual work, you can assign it to BUS and they will sell the publication rights for you (and take a 20% commission). They also manage some compulsory copyright licence schemes. This is a standard way of managing royalty fees in Europe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_collective ).

[aub3bhat]

Related: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3136945/Absurd-new-E...

[Loque]

dailymail should go on your forbidden list, UK red tops are terrible;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabloid_journalism#Red_tops

example; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1296282/I-dos...

[acd]

Background there is a Swedish highest court ruling that bans photos of copyrighted art. http://www.thelocal.se/20160404/wikimedia-breaks-copyright-l...

It has not been tried in the European court yet so it may not be illegal in EU if the EU court over rules the swedish court.

[ptaipale]

Related: http://www.thelocal.se/20160404/wikimedia-breaks-copyright-l...

[poof_he_is_gone]

The public may own the physical artwork, but may not own the licensing to reproductions of it. Searching Cloud Gate on shutterstock.com will quickly show you that all of the images are editorial use only for this reason.

[caf]

Could they replace the pictures with links to a Google Image Search of the statue's name?

[hitlin37]

The current headline is ambiguous. The blog is about copyright law around the map website.

[drjesusphd]

> Therefore Offentlig Konst can no longer show you a picture of a work of art, even when the artwork is in public ownership, on public display and sited in a public area,

Does the same courtesy apply to human beings?

[briandear]

I find it interesting that many of these types of cases seem to be unique to Europe while the US seems to get the brunt of the copyright criticism.

Why is this something artists in Europe sue about? Do they want their work hidden?

[nxzero]

If artist are concerned about copyright, then they should make art that can't be copied; take some comfort in knowing Banksy agrees with me, though even then, I'm still have the same opinion.

[studentrob]

Now I'm curious to see photos of said mapped artwork..

[hapidjus]

I'm not familiar with all the details but as I understand it, the problem is not taking photos of the art, but compiling a catalog of said photos.