Next time you’re in a fancy restaurant, happily broadcasting to the world your snaps of your extravagantly arranged Portobello mushrooms with homemade tahini, remember that if you were in Germany, you could be breaking the law.
Reported in a German newspaper, Die Welt, taking a picture of your artistically arranged food from a top restaurant and sharing it on social media without asking the chef first, is now illegal in Germany. No more #foodporn.
In restaurants famous for their culinary excellence and innovation, where chefs are considered food artists, taking pictures of their food without giving themcredit is technically copyright infringement under this law.
The worst that could happen if you post a picture without the chef's consent is a copyright warning notice being put through your letterbox, but to be on the safe side, German legal service site Anwalkt.de advises you to ask the chef if you can Instagram their artistic property first, just in case.
For the time being, the law has only been passed in Germany, and applied in the best restaurants where the food is created by ‘chef masters’ and is considered a work of art – don’t worry; your #cheekynandos snap is safe.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.