okay, so at this point, probably most of you on this website have heard of Article 13. if you haven’t, here’s a summary: Article 13 is basically the EU’s new law plan for copyrighted material on the internet. but first, let’s talk about the laws now. youtube, for example, like most content sharing websites, can frequently have copyrighted material uploaded to it. but youtube as a company is not held accountable for the copyrighted material on their website, they’re only responsible for taking it down. this is called “SafeHarbor”. however, the EU’s Article 13 is in place, trying to take away safeharbor. it will hold youtube, and other content sharing websites directly accountable for copyrighted material uploaded to their websites, and this means basically ANY and ALL copyrighted material. here’s why article 13 is such a threat to the internet; take a step back and look: copyrighted material, including memes, theories, gameplays, parodies, etc, is all over the internet, whether it’s on youtube, tumblr, instagram, twitter, anything, it’s everywhere. this would make it extremely risky for content sharing sites to have independent content creators still upload their videos. so of course, the only safe way for content sharing sites to operate is to only let the uploaded content be uploaded by the people who already own that copyrighted material; the big companies. “man, that sucks for the EU, am i right” days all my fellow non-european readers. but this will affect you, too. you see, online companies don’t differ the rules to pander to different countries, they just take the strictest set of laws and set them in place for the website globally. so no, this will not just affect the EU. Article 13 as it is is written in such a vague way, stating companies must work “in all good faith” (yes, it literally says “in all good faith”) to remove the copyrighted material, making the article perfect for companies to abuse this law. so what can you do to help? SPREAD THE WORD. TAKE ABOUT IT. reblog, make your own posts, so many people online do not realize how big of a threat Article 13 is, it’s not just some “meme ban”, it’s attacking and threatening the livelihoods of millions of people. so please, talk, spread the word, help #saveyourinternet.
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