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The “Oi, you got a loycense for that” meme has been getting more popular recently for a good reason – members of the European Union have increasingly passed legislation to further police and limit the freedom of the internet – at least within the EU. Now, the EU has passed an initial vote for what they’re calling the “Copyright Directive,” and it has some dangerous clauses included.
The two clauses in question are both Article 11 and Article 13, the former of which is described as a “link tax,” i.e. platforms like Google and Facebook would have to purchase licenses from media companies before users could link to their content.
The latter is described as an “upload filter,” meaning literally everything uploaded to aforementioned platforms would have to be checked for copyright infringement, before it can be posted online. It’s easy to see how draconian this is and how impossible it could be to literally monitor every single online upload within the EU, without infringing on lawful activity.
While the initial vote has been somehow approved by European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI), the directive requires parliamentary approval before it’s actually signed into law.
If passed, this would mean even sharing the hottest meme would be probably illegal within the EU, meaning legal action would be taken on users sharing the latest iteration of “Loss,” and so on. All the while, people are regularly getting acid thrown in their faces or stabbed within the EU, but I digress.
Many prominent figures within the internet are obviously voicing their opposition to this ridiculous directive, including World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, and even Mozilla executive Mitchell Baker.
To our European fans and readers – how do you feel about the proposed legislation? Do you feel the internet should remain open, free, and uncensored? Sound off in the comments below!
