Whats with the law makers and Article 13? If you’ve been hiding under a rock, the long and short of it is that the European Union has written up a directive on copyright in the digital single market that is designed to limit how copyrighted content is shared on online platforms.
Arguably the most interesting part is Article 13, which requires online platforms to either filter or completely remove material from their sites, otherwise they will be held liable. Er…one little problem though, they haven’t quite sorted out how these platforms are expected to identify and remove this content.
So which platforms will this affect? Well the wording near the end of Article13 gives an insight in to which platforms will need to create or employ special filters to remedy copyright infringement:
1. The platform has been available for fewer than three years
2. The platform has an annual turnover below €10 million
3. The platform had fewer than five million unique monthly visitors
Well, that’s a hell of a lot of platforms then! But will the fun loving meme be affected as a result? This isn’t certain, as memes are for the most part based around copyrighted images. Up and coming independent content makers will surely suffer from this though as they build their platforms.
Will it be such a big deal though if memes are affected? Hell yeah, they’re just too funny in modern day society where bitesize content rules! So leave them the **** alone!
