Talk:State Of The Map 2016/Logo entries

Atomium copyright issue

Yesterday SK53 pointed me to the Atomium copyright, which might be a problem here. MarkusHD (talk) 07:09, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you or being aware of this, amongst the SotM Working Group we also brought the concern up. The conclusion was "Last July 9th, the European Parliament has *rejected* an amendment to limit the freedom of panorama." The Guardian has an article with background on the freedom of panorama amendment. - LastGrape/Gregory 13:28, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, in Belgium there has never been freedom of panorama. On the Dutch Wikipedia page about the Atomium, a scale model is shown, and the image used on the English one has a non-free media use rationale. Besides copyright issues, this could also be a trademark issue, because the Atomium is operated by a company. Therefore it may be advisable to reject Atomium depictions.

P.S.: Yes, really, if you're on holiday in Belgium and take a nice picture with the Atomium and you put it online, you're acting illegally. —M!dgard [ talk ] 14:27, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Edit: Belgium now has a freedom of panorama act allowing copies under some specific circumstances. —M!dgard [ talk ] 21:49, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Oh no!. but... screw it! I'm so reckless. I'm like the guys in this video. :-) -- Harry Wood (talk) 10:11, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

It's interesting to note that the non-free rationale is:

The reproduction of this work is covered under the article XI.190 of the Code of Economic Law, which states that "Once a work has been lawfully published, its author may not prohibit: [...] 2/1°. reproduction and communication to the public of works of plastic, graphic or architectural art designed to be placed on a permanent basis in public places, provided that the reproduction or the communication of the work is as it is found there and that this reproduction or communication does not infringe upon the normal exploitation of the work and does not cause unreasonable harm to the legitimate interests of the author [...]." See w:c:Commons:Freedom of panorama#Belgium for more information.

In summary the image is not free, but authorized provided its use does not harms the reasonable interests of the architectural art owner (this means that the context of use is important, and that not all derivations of work are permitted (even if the photo creator and uploader authorized derivation), such as caricature, recoloring, or mouting it in contexts where the image becomes an artefact to show something else, or even just by placing any text on top of the photo over essential parts of the building.

If the image was containing the building and some other people or art creation, e.g. showing group of people striking in from of the building, it is not legal without prior authorisation and the building has to be shwon alone on the photo, in its normal environment context for which it was designed.

As well you would not be allowed to use the image in an article criticizing the building design or the owners: you have the legal right to criticize them (under Belgian "freedom of speech" laws), but using this right will cancel your legal right to use the non-free image to illustrate your posted article without prior authorization and you would have to choose between the article text content and the illustration (there's some "viral" effect of this image restriction onto other works used in the same context, and this means that even for illustrating a Wikipedia article related to the building with this image would void the normal Wikipedia right of publishing opposite/debated point of views, i.e. "NPOV" of Wikimedia). — Verdy_p ^(talk) 22:33, 14 January 2018 (UTC)