Article 13: The EU's "Meme Ban"
If you don't live under a rock, or even if you do and that rock has great internet connection, you've probably heard about the EU passing something called "Article 13." Its an extremely controversial bill that establishes a form of "robo-copyright" but the bill is so long and convoluted that what exactly it does can be somewhat confusing. This would involve a series of digital algorithms programmed to detect any copyrighted software and remove it from whatever platform it happens to be on. But the bill doesn't set any clear guidelines for what infringes copyright, and it is unclear how it would be determined whether or not material falls under fair use, if that even comes into play.
The thing everyone's been saying about the bill though is that it would "ban memes" or images and clips edited with witty subtext. In essence, this is likely, as many of these memes use still frames from various movies or television programs. This would prevent them from being posted and simply seems an unnecessary restrictment as fair use laws and agreements are already enforced to ensure content is transformative, so it seems large corporations are mostly interested in this for the additional revenue they receive for taking monetization from videos and creators using their work. This would also hurt all the creators who currently make videos and internet content for a living, as some of them might no longer make enough money to support themselves. Proponents claim it helps small creators, but most copyrighting helps larger entities anyway, and right now creators, at least on Youtube, can only file copyright claims if working with a network, which doesn't seem likely to change.
So what does this passing mean? Assuming the appeal fails as it likely will, the bill will become law within the next few years. The biggest impact is that parodies will be almost entirely wiped out. Mocking copyrighted material has been caught by social media in the past, and will likely be crippled by this law. In the grand scheme of things, its only a few thousand people losing their jobs, but it seems unnecessary to pass this in the first place. Reviews of almost any kind will be shut down, adding a few more thousand people to the pile, and to be frank, these people don't necessarily have the skills to find new jobs in the real world. But it will also affect the way we deal with corporations online. No more movie memes or edited ads, companies will just hold more power over their brand --that is, exactly what they want people of them.
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The thing everyone's been saying about the bill though is that it would "ban memes" or images and clips edited with witty subtext. In essence, this is likely, as many of these memes use still frames from various movies or television programs. This would prevent them from being posted and simply seems an unnecessary restrictment as fair use laws and agreements are already enforced to ensure content is transformative, so it seems large corporations are mostly interested in this for the additional revenue they receive for taking monetization from videos and creators using their work. This would also hurt all the creators who currently make videos and internet content for a living, as some of them might no longer make enough money to support themselves. Proponents claim it helps small creators, but most copyrighting helps larger entities anyway, and right now creators, at least on Youtube, can only file copyright claims if working with a network, which doesn't seem likely to change.
So what does this passing mean? Assuming the appeal fails as it likely will, the bill will become law within the next few years. The biggest impact is that parodies will be almost entirely wiped out. Mocking copyrighted material has been caught by social media in the past, and will likely be crippled by this law. In the grand scheme of things, its only a few thousand people losing their jobs, but it seems unnecessary to pass this in the first place. Reviews of almost any kind will be shut down, adding a few more thousand people to the pile, and to be frank, these people don't necessarily have the skills to find new jobs in the real world. But it will also affect the way we deal with corporations online. No more movie memes or edited ads, companies will just hold more power over their brand --that is, exactly what they want people of them.
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