Wikimedia Sweden Found Guilty of Breaking Copyright Law
UPDATE: Comments from Wikimedia Foundation on Ruling in the Blog Post“A strike against freedom of panorama: Swedish court rules against Wikimedia Sverige”
From AFP:
Sweden’s highest court on Monday found Wikimedia Sweden guilty of violating copyright laws by providing free access to its database of artwork photographs without the artists’ consent.
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The Visual Copyright Society in Sweden (BUS), which represents painters, photographers, illustrators and designers among others, had sued Wikimedia Sweden for making photographs of their artwork displayed in public places available in its database, without their consent.
The Supreme Court found in favour of BUS, arguing that while individuals were permitted to photograph artwork on display in public spaces, it was “an entirely different matter” to make the photographs available in a database for free and unlimited use.
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Additional Coverage
English Translations of Swedish Media Reports using Google Translate
via Dn.se
via Expressen.se
via Svt.se
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.