I’m not a huge content creator or anything, but we have to sit down and talk about something extremely important.
Article 13 in Europe is in its final stages of voting, and could end us content creators for good.
You’re probably thinking: whoa. This isn’t the content I signed up for, what the heck? But this is important and could change the world of the Internet as we know it.
Now, I’m no legal powerhouse but MatPat from Game Theory/Film Theory did an amazingly detailed video explaining how this could destroy us.
This article basically can destroy fandoms. Remember the whole thing of the Internet being regulated a while back, and how we would have to be forced to pay for spesific website access? Net Neutrality? This is arguably worse than that. I have a small taste in the legal field so when I say the language is too vague in the article and will be taken advantage of, I mean it.
In the legal world, wording is really, really important. This article might not be as terrible if the wording was more spesific than “In good faith”, etc etc…
This article has the potential to bring down fandoms as we know it, take away your favourite youtubers (along with an insanely large amount of people, I’m talking millions) jobs, censor people in fandoms, etc. All the beautiful fanart I reblog from my current fandom? Illegal. Markiplier, JackCepticEye, GameGrumps, Game Theory, everyone. Even animators like JadenAnimations or TheOddOnesOut will be hit hard- most of their animations have stuff in them that would be considered copyright under this new law.
You’re probably thinking “This is just in Europe. I don’t need to care.” I thought that too. And that’s a terrible, terrible misconception the lawmakers in the EU want you to think.
Companies, usually spanning across multiple continents have rules and regulations adhering to the strictest continent so that they don’t have to have different regulations across the globe. (Again, MatPat does a much better job at explaining this than I do.) The thing is, if Europe passes this article, we in the United States would be hit too, equally as hard.
Please, please. Save the internet. Save our culture. Save the diversity of this wonderful (and sometimes terrible) place that we, the public, have built. Don’t let these big companies make the Internet something that is only accessible to the highest bidder. The Internet itself was created for the millitary, then spesifically spread out to the public. The Internet needs our protection- let us protect it.
Please spread the word about this article. Tell your friends in the EU to talk to their representatives about this, and let us convince them in the legislature on how important this is to us. Don’t let them take this away from us.
