The European Commission adopted the final version of the infamous Article 13 on February 13 (how ironic!). Let’s see what this means.
A very ambiguous text about VPNs in Europe
Article 13 is part of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (also known as the EU Copyright Directive). This is a directive proposed in 2016 with the aim of renewing the outdated laws on copyright in the digital age. Whether or not it was high time for this renewal is not up for debate: it certainly was. What caused the most resistance was the very ambiguous language of Article 13. Indeed, many interpreted the text as the end of memes as we know them like Express VPN @ Globalwatchonline.es
The original text indicated that media companies must take steps to remove video’s, images, articles, GIF’s, and audio files that fall under “copyright infringement”. On top of that, companies have to start using an automatic identification system when people cannot check the dailyüploaded files because of animal enormous size. The problem with this method is that any large media platform, whose content depends on its users, would have to use a system with many imperfections to check for copyright infringement. Such’a system would block and remove all files that violate copyright – even in the case of fair use. The new text emphatically defends memes and GIF’s, but does not address the imperfections of an automatic identification system.
Freebooting vs. Fair Use of VPN Providers
There are many cases where someone posts original content on YouTube and it is abused. The creator can only watch as a Facebook page posts the video on its page and takes credit for it. This is called “freebooting”. Freebooting harms the original creator of the video greatly, because the Facebook page steals all his or her views and revenue. In all other cases, distributing a video does not harm the original creator. This is the case, for example, when a short piece of a video is turned into a meme (think of what happened to Gabbie Hanna when she appeared on Genius). In this case, people are effectively lured to the original video to watch the meme-less version.
The problem with an automatic process to distinguish freebooting from fair use is that a machine cannot possibly know the difference between the two. Both an exact copy of the video and a meme of it will be seen by the system as copyright infringement. This is especially a sticking point for all the reaction channels on YouTube that actually help the featured video get more attention (think Fine Brothers Entertainment and their REACT channel). News outlets (Philip DeFranco, TechLinked, etc.) that quote a short piece of an article will also be in trouble por el Netflix VPN en Argentina.
European or not, you should be concerned about VPN use
Europeans are responsible for much of all content posted on the Internet. Article 13 could result in a huge attack on all this content. Especially many gamers, beauty gurus and vloggers come from Europe. Indeed, YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud and other media companies would rather not face giant fines from the European Union. For the same reason, many platforms might decide to block some or all of their content from European countries. In this way, they can avoid unnecessary difficulties. This is what has sparked a lot of discussions on the Internet. It has also led to many petitions around the world for ExpressVPN thai.