4 ms·

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, man

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 https://lagen.nu/1960:729#P24S1] And the full law: http://rinfo.stage.lagrummet.se//publ/sfs/2005:359/pdf,sv 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.)

fnordsensei 11y ago
Right, but wouldn't the Facebook sum total of photos be considered such a database? Or indeed Google Image search?
Trombone12 11y ago
If you however create a group on facebook and collect photos of statues there along with comments about them on each photo, FB would presumably be liable since I don't think its the sort of thing they prohibit in the ToS.
phkn1 11y ago
Under this interpretation, wouldn't (say) a collection of Facebook photos with statues, in aggregate, constitute a database and therefore become illegal? At what point does the size and structure of a collection become sufficient to cross the legal line? Would an individual Facebook user therefore be liable? Would Facebook as whole? etc. It seems that the law has created the unintended consequence that the organization of the depictions in question matter more than the actual depictions themselves. Or in other words, of imputing commercial intent to any such collection of copyrighted works, whether intentional or otherwise.
- lukeschlather 11y ago
  Maybe I'm misinterpreting it, but it sounds like there's no problem since Facebook is a commercial enterprise. The problem is when a nonprofit does it. (Which seems... wrongheaded, to basically ban nonprofit websites from competing with for-profit ones.)
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    Wrongheaded is a polite way to put it. Do I have this straight? Publishers are allowed to make guidebooks and sell postcards without permission and also without recompense for the artists. Historians and critics are allowed to include the photos in books without permission. For-profit corporations are allowed to use the photos as long as they don't collect them into a single database marked "highly dangerous public database of art photographs". But nonprofits who create a digital guidebook are copyright criminals - with the implication that they're not allowed to distribute the work for free, because it might affect the profitability of a hypothetical not-yet-existent commercial alternative. I'd hope a good lawyer could sail a battleship through that line of argument. It's clearly prejudicial, discriminatory, inconsistent, arbitrary, and not in the interests of either the public or the copyright holders. I suspect if it gets taken to the EU Courts, it will be shot down in flames in short order.
    - dr_toolittle 11y ago
      Court is fine, but in the meantime, I'd just find a loophole. E.g. it might be ok to take a picture of each piece of art with a person standing in front of it, so retake the pictures or just superimpose a picture of a person with a transparent background onto each picture. Then once you've found that loophole, exploit the heck of it and sell prints on the street with that person superimposed on the art. Just give a big middle finger to the law.
    - gambiting 11y ago
      You might be surprised. In the end, Google got fined in France because Google Maps was competing with paid maps, and if you think about it, google maps is just a depiction of land, it's all publicly available information. But they got fined because their free product was making commercial ones impossible or very hard to sell.
vilhelm_s 11y ago
The decision from the supreme court is available online: http://www.hogstadomstolen.se/Domstolar/hogstadomstolen/Avgoranden/2016/2016-04-04%20%C3%96%20849-15%20Beslut.pdf http://www.hogstadomstolen.se/Domstolar/hogstadomstolen/Avgo... As I understand it, actually the sentence that you quote, §24(3), is not relevant in this case. §24 provides three exceptions to the general system of copyright, and this case turns on §24(1), which says "artwork can be depicted if they are permanently placed in a public place outdoors". So, it would naively seem that photos of public art are not copyright protected. However, the court reasoned that the word "depict" does not cover the act of publicizing the pictures in an open database. They reason based on what kind of use they think the legislators had in mind when passing the law: they think it is intended to allow taking photos of streets, and selling postcards of sculptures, but that a database has more commercial value than a postcard, and therefore the legislators did not intend that to be included in the term...
- tobr 11y ago
  How do you determine what commercial value something has? Apparently not by whether it costs money or not. The map is offered for free, without ads. Postcards are usually for pay.
  - vilhelm_s 11y ago
    They don't say anything about how to determine the value. In general, it seems to me that this decision will create a lot of uncertainty about what is copyrighted and what is free. They do say that the test is whether someone _could_ sell it for money, so the fact that in this case Wikimedia is a non-profit and does it for free does not affect the outcome.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  >a database has more commercial value than a postcard That's comparing apples and giraffes. A more accurate comparison would be a publisher's collection of postcards, and the business machinery used to make money from them.
biztos 11y ago
> it is not illegal to post Facebook photos with a statue. Since clearly that is not a database ...but then it would be illegal to tag the photo, right?

fnordsensei 11y ago

Right, but wouldn't the Facebook sum total of photos be considered such a database? Or indeed Google Image search?

Trombone12 11y ago

If you however create a group on facebook and collect photos of statues there along with comments about them on each photo, FB would presumably be liable since I don't think its the sort of thing they prohibit in the ToS.

phkn1 11y ago

Under this interpretation, wouldn't (say) a collection of Facebook photos with statues, in aggregate, constitute a database and therefore become illegal? At what point does the size and structure of a collection become sufficient to cross the legal line? Would an individual Facebook user therefore be liable? Would Facebook as whole? etc. It seems that the law has created the unintended consequence that the organization of the depictions in question matter more than the actual depictions themselves. Or in other words, of imputing commercial intent to any such collection of copyrighted works, whether intentional or otherwise.

lukeschlather 11y ago
Maybe I'm misinterpreting it, but it sounds like there's no problem since Facebook is a commercial enterprise. The problem is when a nonprofit does it. (Which seems... wrongheaded, to basically ban nonprofit websites from competing with for-profit ones.)
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  Wrongheaded is a polite way to put it. Do I have this straight? Publishers are allowed to make guidebooks and sell postcards without permission and also without recompense for the artists. Historians and critics are allowed to include the photos in books without permission. For-profit corporations are allowed to use the photos as long as they don't collect them into a single database marked "highly dangerous public database of art photographs". But nonprofits who create a digital guidebook are copyright criminals - with the implication that they're not allowed to distribute the work for free, because it might affect the profitability of a hypothetical not-yet-existent commercial alternative. I'd hope a good lawyer could sail a battleship through that line of argument. It's clearly prejudicial, discriminatory, inconsistent, arbitrary, and not in the interests of either the public or the copyright holders. I suspect if it gets taken to the EU Courts, it will be shot down in flames in short order.
  - dr_toolittle 11y ago
    Court is fine, but in the meantime, I'd just find a loophole. E.g. it might be ok to take a picture of each piece of art with a person standing in front of it, so retake the pictures or just superimpose a picture of a person with a transparent background onto each picture. Then once you've found that loophole, exploit the heck of it and sell prints on the street with that person superimposed on the art. Just give a big middle finger to the law.
  - gambiting 11y ago
    You might be surprised. In the end, Google got fined in France because Google Maps was competing with paid maps, and if you think about it, google maps is just a depiction of land, it's all publicly available information. But they got fined because their free product was making commercial ones impossible or very hard to sell.

vilhelm_s 11y ago

The decision from the supreme court is available online: http://www.hogstadomstolen.se/Domstolar/hogstadomstolen/Avgoranden/2016/2016-04-04%20%C3%96%20849-15%20Beslut.pdf http://www.hogstadomstolen.se/Domstolar/hogstadomstolen/Avgo... As I understand it, actually the sentence that you quote, §24(3), is not relevant in this case. §24 provides three exceptions to the general system of copyright, and this case turns on §24(1), which says "artwork can be depicted if they are permanently placed in a public place outdoors". So, it would naively seem that photos of public art are not copyright protected. However, the court reasoned that the word "depict" does not cover the act of publicizing the pictures in an open database. They reason based on what kind of use they think the legislators had in mind when passing the law: they think it is intended to allow taking photos of streets, and selling postcards of sculptures, but that a database has more commercial value than a postcard, and therefore the legislators did not intend that to be included in the term...

tobr 11y ago
How do you determine what commercial value something has? Apparently not by whether it costs money or not. The map is offered for free, without ads. Postcards are usually for pay.
- vilhelm_s 11y ago
  They don't say anything about how to determine the value. In general, it seems to me that this decision will create a lot of uncertainty about what is copyrighted and what is free. They do say that the test is whether someone _could_ sell it for money, so the fact that in this case Wikimedia is a non-profit and does it for free does not affect the outcome.
TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
>a database has more commercial value than a postcard That's comparing apples and giraffes. A more accurate comparison would be a publisher's collection of postcards, and the business machinery used to make money from them.

biztos 11y ago

> it is not illegal to post Facebook photos with a statue. Since clearly that is not a database ...but then it would be illegal to tag the photo, right?