Don’t panic! This was expected at this stage and it is only the beginning. If you are a European and feel passionate about this, please keep on reading and help!
So what has happened so far … the Commission has drafted up a long overdue copyright reform. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/procedure/EN/2016_280 It contains a lot of good, and some bad: mainly Article 11 and 13.
This was put forward as a whole to the European Parlament, where it was voted down on the 5th of July 2018
This meant, this will not go through the fast way, and will be subject to scrutiny and change.
The Commission made some alterations https://eur-lex.europa.eu/procedure/EN/2016_280 and put it forward again. If Parlament would have voted it down again, it probably would have meant back to the drawing board, but most people (including me) agree that Europe does need copyright reform, so on the second vote it passed the first step:
This will now go into what is called the Trilogue, where Commission, Parlament and representatives of all national governments will sit together to make alterations until everybody is happy implementing the regulation.
This means we can now influence this via our MEPs and our National Government!
In countries that are red your government is likely to support Article 13.
There are a lot of organisations that organise actions against article 13. Check out their websites and get in touch with your MEP or local government and let them know you are unhappy about this.
https://www.saveyourinternet.eu/
https://www.changecopyright.org/
https://juliareda.eu/eu-copyright-reform/
… and many many more, just google to find one in your country.
Also, as @asthesea-breezehitsmylungs pointed out, a lot of people are not aware of this going on. So make them aware! Share the memes and point them to the petitions. And don’t just complain how shit this is, get in touch with your politicians!
