Taking pictures of public buildings and monuments may violate Uruguay’s copyright law

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The first tweet read: “Did you know that taking pictures of the Monumento al Gaucho or the Palacio Salvo is illegal?” The second: “Are you surprised? You’re not the only one. We conducted a survey on perceptions of copyright law. Over 80% of respondents believe that taking pictures of the Gaucho Monument, Palacio Salvo or Casa Pueblo is legal in Uruguay.”

Datysoc data and society lab conducted a digital survey where it found that over 80% of respondents were unaware that it is illegal to take photos of monuments or iconic buildings, such as Montevideo’s Palacio Salvo or Punta del Este’s Casapueblo.

In Uruguay, taking pictures of monuments or building facades whose architects died less than 70 years ago is forbidden. Sharing them on one’s own websites or social networks is an “act of public disclosure,” and therefore also banned.

The survey tried to understand the difference between copyright perceptions among the population and what the law states. The tweets continued: “There is a regulatory lag that still keeps many practices perceived as harmless and even socially beneficial as illegal.”

The survey also found that nearly 75% of respondents believed it is legal to insert YouTube videos created by third parties into their own media. In addition, 90% thought that quoting in image and video format did not violate the law.

However, quoting copyrighted content in any format other than text is not allowed. In its social media, Datysoc wrote that “it is forbidden, for instance, to use a picture from a contemporary movie to comment on or criticize it.”

The concluding tweet read: “The problem is not you. The problem is the law, which was passed in 1937 and was never reformed to protect the practices occurring in the digital era, affecting rights such as freedom of expression and access to information.”

THE SURVEY

The survey was conducted under the name “How much do you know about copyright? Knowledge and perceptions of Uruguayan citizens on the scope of copyright law” and was published in July 2021.

The document itself states that “at the heart of the debate are the exceptions and limitations to copyright, as a means of adapting this legislation to the practices of digital culture.”

The data collected by the laboratory was gathered through a self-administered digital survey. In other words, respondents answered the questions on their own electronic device from anywhere in the country. The same was disclosed through Datysoc’s social networks.

There were 33 questions, some on sociodemographic data and others on copyright perception. The survey found an inverse relationship between the perception of right/wrong and the right/wrong rate.

“While 78% feel fairly confident or very confident that they answered most questions correctly, in fact only 32% of respondents answered half or more than half of questions correctly. This is an indicator of the existence of a gap between the perception of respondents and what the law actually dictates regarding certain unauthorized uses of works,” the report says.