Online Photos Can't Simply Be Republished, EU Court Rules (politico.eu)

The European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that internet users must ask for a photographer's permission before posting their images online, even if the photos were already freely accessible on other websites. "The posting on a website of a photograph that was freely accessible on another website with the consent of the author requires a new authorization by that author," the EU's top court said in a statement. Politico reports: The court had been asked to decide on a case in Germany, in which a secondary school student downloaded and used a photo that had been freely accessible on a travel website for a school project. The photo was later posted on the school's website as well. The photographer who took the picture argued the school's use of his photo was a copyright infringement because he only gave the travel site permission to use it, and claimed damages amounting to 400 euros (~$463). The ECJ ruled in the photographer's favor, saying that under the EU's Copyright Directive, the school should have gotten his approval before publishing the photo.

Comments

Re:Nothing new

[rtb61]

How many photos on the web, billions, check the copyright on them all, yeah fuck off, time to change the law. You want copyright, you can fucking pay a fee for it, each and every year. That fee pays for a government web site to store a copy, so people can check against it, that fee to be paid yearly for say 25 years and then it is over. Too much content to watch, why the hell continue to subsidise it at the communities expense when there is far more than be consumed by any person in something like 10,000 years. Unless it is of real worth to society, it should no receive copyright protection, unless the user pays, the creator of the content pays for that protection, fuck em, public domain. User pays, want protection, pay for it, otherwise keep it in your pants like the other abusers in Hollywood should.