In Germany, it is illegal to upload pictures of food to Instagram

zainab quadri

August 19, 2015 12:25 PM

If you are planning an holiday to Germany, you have to be mindful that snapping photographs of their food or sausage and uploading it to the internet is actually illegal.

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Pictures of meals served with the #foodporn hashtag may be popular on social media networks across the globe, but that is irrelevant to Germany's legal system.

In 2013 a Federal Court of Justice in Germany ruling found elaborately arranged food to be the artistic property of its creator. Essentially, this means that you'll need to ask the chef's permission before taking and uploading a picture of your latest meal.

'An elaborately arranged dish in a restaurant can be a copyright-protected work,' explained Dr Niklas Haberkamm, partner at corporate law firm Lampmann, Haberkamm & Rosenbaum (LHR).

He added: 'In such a case, the creator of the work has the right to decide where and to what extent the work can be reproduced.'

So, in order to show off the culinary creation beyond the restaurant walls, you'd need the chef to okay it - even if the photo is just for Instagram or a blog and not intended for commercial use.

However, a German legal services website, Anwalt.de, wrote in a post that whether or not a meal is considered 'art' depends on the meal's design.

That means that posting a photo of your fast food takeaway, for example, is not likely to be a problem.

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