Your resident copyright detective has received a query this month from a photographer about how to protect their work. It turned out that they like to photograph buildings, and they asked: ‘I heard this wasn’t allowed under copyright.’

Aha. This relates to a potential exception in international copyright laws called “Freedom of Panorama”. This is the right to use photographs of public buildings and sculptures without copyright restrictions. In countries which do not have this provision in their copyright laws, such use of a photograph (for example, uploading to a social media site) would infringe the rights of the creator.

Thankfully we do have freedom of panorama in the UK, meaning that we, and visiting tourists, can photograph our public buildings and monuments without fear.

I highly recommend this article for a detailed and eye-raising insight into the mind-boggling complexities around this area of international copyright confusion: The copyright law that should have architects up in arms.