Panoramafreiheit and (more) about Buildings and Photos

Dear Rich: I wanted to point out an inaccuracy in your response to the posting from April 3rd concerning "permission to reproduce museum works." While in the U.S., photos of the outside of buildings accessible by the public are exempted from copyright, the same is not true in many foreign countries. As of 2001, at least, France was once of those places. Thanks for your comments. The Dear Rich staff sometimes suffers from ethnocentrism. Our response (now corrected) was based on U.S. Copyright law. As you point out, some European nations, notably France and Italy, place limitations on the photographing of public buildings. The general principle, referred to as panoramafreiheit in Germany (panorama freedom), is discussed in detail here.