European Internet Copyright Changes Approved, To Be Voted On In July

[Halloqueen]

On the heels of the United States' decision to shred its Net Neutrality regulations, the Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs over in the European Union has approved the controversial Article 13 by a 15-to-10 vote, as well as Article 11 by a vote of 13-to-12.

What is Article 13?

The Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs voted 15-10 "to approve the controversial Article 13, which critics warn could put an end to memes, remixes and other user-generated content," the BBC reported.

As we wrote last week, the proposal "seeks to make Internet services that host large amounts of user-uploaded material responsible for policing their holdings to prevent copyright infringement." Businesses would no longer benefit from safe harbor protection "for any service that 'optimizes' content, which includes things like promoting, tagging, curating, or sequencing a site's contents."

Article 13 puts more onus on websites to enforce copyright and could mean that every online platform that allows users to post text, sounds, code or images will need some form of content-recognition system to review all material that users upload.

Meanwhile, what is Article 11?

Article 11 has been called the "link tax" by opponents.

Designed to limit the power over news publishers that tech giants such as Facebook and Google have, it requires online platforms to pay publishers a fee if they link to their news content.

The theory is that this would help support smaller news publishers and drive users to their homepages rather than directly to their news stories.

But critics say it fails to clearly define what constitutes a link and could be manipulated by governments to curb freedom of speech.

Here are the articles if you want to read them yourselves for more information:

Europe advances copyright law that could filter the Internet | Ars Technica

'Disastrous' copyright bill vote approved - BBC News

 

[Midoriya]

RIP memes in the EU, lmao

 

[LambdaDelta]

we desperately need to abolish modern copyright law

 

[Corrie]

This is why we need to stop letting the government have so much power. It's bull.

 

[tumut]

This would've never happened if Trump was their president

it is a joke

 

[LambdaDelta]

because they'd be too busy committing human rights violations and permitting genocide?

 

[Reginald Fairfield]

Is "fan art" now illegal to post from there? I would say it falls under parody.

 

[Seastar]

So, should I be concerned that a fan site I go on is British or will it be fine since they are trying to leave the EU?

 

[Midoriya]

So, should I be concerned that a fan site I go on is British or will it be fine since they are trying to leave the EU?

This is what I want to know as well. Does it affect England as well? I have a feeling it does based on some other things, though I could be wrong.

 

[Alienfish]

Ughh yeah I read about this some time ago. Can we even post selfies or do my parents have to approve this?

Honestly it's just so dumb. I highly doubt people do it to earn money on the creator's favour anyway.

 

[KnoxUK]

I never thought I'd have the perfect opportunity to post this

 

[Buttonsy]

Is "fan art" now illegal to post from there? I would say it falls under parody.

Fan art has always been kind of a grey area in the law, but "parody" is usually imitation for comic effect, so if it's not comedic, it's probably not a parody. If you're into fan art or anything like that, it'd be good to do some further digging into what Fair Use and things like that actually mean, they are really misunderstood and complex, misinformation about what does and doesn't count is pretty rampant.

 

[partangel]

even you dont think its harmful to you because youre not european, it still will be. millions of accounts on social media like tumblr will be deleted, anything content made by europeans will also most likely be deleted. this includes fanart, fanfic, amvs, memes, and a lot more of things. please take some of your time if youre not european to help the petition and if youre from the eu use the site ill link to email/call/tweet your country's representative. the email/twt function comes with an actual premade email to be sent so you dont even have to do much. also op please put both of the petition link: https://www.change.org/p/european-p...=twitter&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial and the website that makes the premade emails/tweets and lets you call ur representatives in the spot: https://saveyourinternet.eu/, on the original post. i think its really good someone made an informative thread about it, but spreading ways to change it would be even more beneficial. thank you very much if you do