Memes 'will be banned' under new EU copyright law, warn campaigners

[Player Twelve]

https://news.sky.com/story/memes-wil...gners-11398577

A new copyright law from the European Union would lead to the banning of memes on the internet, campaigners are warning.

The EU Copyright Directive intends to protect the intellectual property rights of people who upload their material to the internet.

However, campaigners are warning the law will require "all content uploaded to the internet to be monitored and potentially deleted if a likeness to existing copyright is protected".

The campaign against a particular provision of the directive, Article 13, warns that online platforms would be economically damaged if they were forced to comply with its expensive obligations.

The law would "destroy the internet as we know it" warn the campaigners, who add it would "allow big companies to control what we see and do online".

Essentially, the campaigners are arguing the stringent copyright protections of Article 13 would damage the sharing of parody content and memes which, while themselves being original and creative works, are often developed from other people's original content.

Memes including image macros - such as the stock photograph of a distracted boyfriend taken by photographer Antonio Guillem - are often shared without the approval of the copyright holder.

The campaign follows an open letter sent by academics from intellectual property research centres in Europe regarding the copyright directive.

The allegations have been robustly rejected by the European Commission.

Introducing the legislative drive in 2016, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said he wanted "journalists, publishers and authors to be paid fairly for their work".

The copyright protections would apply to that work "whether it is made in studios or living rooms, whether it is disseminated offline or online, whether it is published via a copying machine or commercially hyperlinked on the web."

In response to the campaign, a European Commission spokesperson told Sky News: "The idea behind our copyright proposals is that people should be able to make a living from their creative ideas.

"The proposals to modernise EU copyright provisions will not harm freedom of expression on the internet.

"They take into account technological developments that have already been introduced by some of the major players and which help in two ways.

[Cerilis]

Finally something good comes out of this.

[Hyral]

Begun, the Meme Wars has.

[Graeham]

I'm sure this won't be abused in any way.

[dunhildas]

Finally something good comes out of this.

Tell me, where did you get your avatar from? wait better question, do you have permission to use it?

[Deleted]

This is really bad because it overrides fair use and is expensive to comply with.

EU needs to take a step back. There are MORE than enough copyright protections already.

[AeneasBK]

If this means that the original uploader of the meme will get the credit for it and not all the endless reposts, then this is a good thing

[MementosMori]

They will not divide us

[LedZeppelin]

Time to become an illegal meme distributor

[Daedius]

Good luck suing anyone, not knowing origin of them. Have fun wasting resources trying though...

[Omedon]

The board is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at last...
The great battle of our time.

[Shadowferal]

Could I get a legal definition and perhaps a couple of examples to illustrate?

[jackofwind]

Good, fuck memes.

[owbu]

Is this the same legislation that wants to introduce a link fee (whenever anyone uses a link to your website, you HAVE to charge for it)?

I read something about print media and publishers lobbying hard for this kind of stuff because they are terrible at adapting their buisness model to modern technologies.

[Reivur]

Tell me, where did you get your avatar from? wait better question, do you have permission to use it?

Why good sir that's a character from Umineko no Naku Koro ni. Which I have sincere doubts that they own, or have had contact with the designer to use. Hmm. Uh-oh.

[ParanoiD84]

Good luck lol.

[Deleted]

I'm sure this won't be abused in any way.

I said that back in another thread, so I'm sueing you.

Cheers

[Trassk]

It isn't just memes.

Your not giving this story the full extent and attention it needs.



just saying 'memes will be effected' doesn't begin to tell you how bad this is. This is essentially the EU breaking freedom of speech. Your not be able to link, reference or view anything if its counted as copy-written material.

This will effectively destroy youtube, make any forum you visit empty, and strangle the spread of information across the board.

[Hablion]

I'm sure this will go about as well as banning porn, or music/movie downloads.

Odds are forums will have to remove avatars and signatures otherwise they could be served a cease and desist letter and then promptly sued for distributing and harboring copyrighted material. Basically this kills Avatars, Quotes, and Reviews of products (since this overrides fair use ).

[3DTyrant]

Time to become an illegal meme distributor

H-hey maaaan *scratches neck* Ya.. ya got any of them good ol' memes?!