On 9 July 2015, the European Parliament might destroy photography.

The Freedom of taking photos in public places is under attack. Until now, in most countries in Europe you were safe to take and publish photographs that are taken from public ground – This is called Freedom of Panorama. When you were on vacation, you could take a photo from the London Eye and share it with your friends on Facebook*. If someone wanted to pay you for using this photo, that was okay as well. But this is about to change may destroy photography as we know it.

Julia Reda, member of the European Parliament, tried to bring the Freedom of Panorama to all countries of the EU, as few countries like France and Italy don’t have such law yet. In the majority of countries such as the UK, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria and Croatia, you’re safe to take, publish and sell photos of public buildings when taken from public grounds.

However, the current draft turned the proposal upside down. Instead of bringing the Freedom of Panorama to the few countries that don’t know such law yet, it would take it away from all those who do. With this, Street-, Travel- and Architecture-Photography would be dead as we know it. It is impossible to find out the architect of every public building in order to ask for permission before you can publish and possibly sell the photo.

I therefore call on the members of the European Parliament to

Not limit the Freedom of Panorama in any way

and instead to

Bring the Freedom of Panorama to all member states of the EU

so that the European Citizens can be assured to act within the law when taking and publishing photographs of public buildings anywhere in the European Union. This is necessary to embrace our European Culture and Art!

In addition to signing the petition, here you can find an exemplary e-mail that you can send to your local representative in the parliament: E-Mail

So far the e-mail is available in English, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish.

*As Julia Reda, member of the European Parliament, points out, even the private upload of a photograph on Facebook would need the consent of the architect, as with the upload you grant Facebook a license to commercially use the photograph.

Petition in German here, in Italian here

For the media requests:

Nico Trinkhaus, Freelance Travel Photographer and Founder of PhotoClaim

As a travel photographer I try to capture the landmarks of the world in the best light, to motivate as many people as possible to start travelling and exploring cultures. This wouldn't be possible without the Freedom of Panorama. Since I'm working as a photographer all over Europe, I also know the disadvantages of the still not completely harmonized copyright law in the EU. To protect photographers rights, I started PhotoClaim, a service that helps photographers to enforce their rights in the other European countries. Photography as an art must be able to capture the beauty and culture of the world, without the photographer being afraid to break the law.