UPDATE: European Parliament vote on "freedom of panorama"

Today, July 9, 2015, the European Parliament voted to remove the proposal by MEP Jean-Marie Cavada to restrict the scope of freedom of panorama in the European Union.

The result of the vote means that while the freedom of panorama won't be extended to France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Italy, which currently restrict the freedom of panorama, that restriction won't be extended to the other European countries which have instituted it to their copyright law. In other words, the status quo is preserved and while rights weren't added for those without them, they weren't taken away from those who already enjoy them.

By the time the vote was taken, the online petition calling for Cavada's attempt to restrict the freedom of panorama to be thrown out had more than a half million signatures. There was a lot of power added to those MEP's fighting in the EP to at least maintain the status quo by those signatures.

Only 40 of the 751 Members of the European Parliament voted to retain the Cavada restrictions in the proposed new copyright law.

On her website, MEP Julia Reda, who proposed to extend the freedom of panorama throughout Europe wrote, “… most Europeans will continue to be able to post selfies online and view photos of famous buildings on Wikipedia unencumbered by copyright.

We must now continue to fight for an extension of important copyright exceptions such as this one to all member states.”

The next opportunity to extend the freedom of panorama through the European Union will occur at the end of the 2015 calendar year. While many are hopeful that the vote will be positive at that time, everyone should not assume it will as the conservative faction, particularly from France and Belgium, and others scattered through the European Union will fight the proposal with all the political power they can muster.