<story><title>The Illegal Map of Swedish Art</title><url>http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-illegal-map-of-swedish-art.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hjnilsson</author><text>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 &amp;quot;Artwork can be depicted if contained in a collection or catalogue, but not in digital form&amp;quot;. So a book detailing famous art is allowed, but a website doing the same is not.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;The paragraph in question: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lagen.nu&amp;#x2F;1960:729#P24S1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lagen.nu&amp;#x2F;1960:729#P24S1&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;p&gt;And the full law: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;rinfo.stage.lagrummet.se&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;publ&amp;#x2F;sfs&amp;#x2F;2005:359&amp;#x2F;pdf,sv&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;rinfo.stage.lagrummet.se&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;publ&amp;#x2F;sfs&amp;#x2F;2005:359&amp;#x2F;pdf,sv&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;(This law - 2005:359 - is also the law that added the &amp;quot;data tax&amp;quot; in Sweden of 0,4 kronor per MB.)</text></item><item><author>belorn</author><text>Reading the article from the Swedish national radio, the court decision found that wikimedia database of photo has a &amp;quot;commercial value&amp;quot; that can compete with commercial enterprises of the copyright authors who created the public statues or paintings on buildings.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;quot; on the Internet&amp;quot; as that action might be considered to have a commercial value.&lt;p&gt;In my view, its a bit weird.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>phkn1</author><text>Under this interpretation, wouldn&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;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 &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; such collection of copyrighted works, whether intentional or otherwise.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Illegal Map of Swedish Art</title><url>http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-illegal-map-of-swedish-art.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hjnilsson</author><text>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 &amp;quot;Artwork can be depicted if contained in a collection or catalogue, but not in digital form&amp;quot;. So a book detailing famous art is allowed, but a website doing the same is not.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;The paragraph in question: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lagen.nu&amp;#x2F;1960:729#P24S1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lagen.nu&amp;#x2F;1960:729#P24S1&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;p&gt;And the full law: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;rinfo.stage.lagrummet.se&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;publ&amp;#x2F;sfs&amp;#x2F;2005:359&amp;#x2F;pdf,sv&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;rinfo.stage.lagrummet.se&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;publ&amp;#x2F;sfs&amp;#x2F;2005:359&amp;#x2F;pdf,sv&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;(This law - 2005:359 - is also the law that added the &amp;quot;data tax&amp;quot; in Sweden of 0,4 kronor per MB.)</text></item><item><author>belorn</author><text>Reading the article from the Swedish national radio, the court decision found that wikimedia database of photo has a &amp;quot;commercial value&amp;quot; that can compete with commercial enterprises of the copyright authors who created the public statues or paintings on buildings.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;quot; on the Internet&amp;quot; as that action might be considered to have a commercial value.&lt;p&gt;In my view, its a bit weird.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vilhelm_s</author><text>The decision from the supreme court is available online: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.hogstadomstolen.se&amp;#x2F;Domstolar&amp;#x2F;hogstadomstolen&amp;#x2F;Avgoranden&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;2016-04-04%20%C3%96%20849-15%20Beslut.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.hogstadomstolen.se&amp;#x2F;Domstolar&amp;#x2F;hogstadomstolen&amp;#x2F;Avgo...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;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 &amp;quot;artwork can be depicted if they are permanently placed in a public place outdoors&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;So, it would naively seem that photos of public art are not copyright protected. However, the court reasoned that the word &amp;quot;depict&amp;quot; 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...</text></comment>