Thursday, November 23, 2017

[twveubtl] Freedom of panorama

Some countries, e.g. France and Italy, do not have freedom of panorama.  Is architecture noticeably different -- better -- in those countries, as architects are incentivized to create better works by the financial promise of the additional copyright royalty revenue stream from all photographs of their works?

I strongly suspect architecture is no different in countries without freedom of panorama.  Architects (and those who commission them) will create the works they create regardless of whether they control who photographs their buildings afterward.  I strongly suspect there is ample evidence that restricting freedom of panorama makes no difference in incentivizing creativity (the point of copyright), consequently, such laws should obviously be repealed.

Nevertheless, some countries have not repealed such laws.  Freedom of panorama can therefore serve as a canary, indicating to what extent a government is broken, unable to pass or repeal laws that benefit their country.

Belgium very recently (June 2016) granted freedom of panorama.

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