With the right winning the war of snark on social media, proposed legislation from the European Union could soon bring about the demise of memes and GIFs.
If the EU opts to enforce Article 13, websites may be forced to filter out text, audio, photos and video shared by users against a growing database of copyrighted works, the New York Post reported.
More from The Post on the impact the proposed legislation could have:
Beyond memes, the law could — for example — impact still or moving images that contain copyrighted music or posters in the background.
The regulation is the EU’s stab at restructuring copyright law for the internet age in an effort to protect digital rights holders like record labels, photo agencies and film studios.
Critics argue that the law violates the fundamental rights of internet users and could be used to excessively censor the web, the paper added.
The EU will vote on the copyright directive on June 20-21, according to the Save Your Internet campaign, which says the law could “destroy the internet as we know it.”
“Should Article 13 of the Copyright Directive be adopted, it will impose widespread censorship of all the content you share online,” the group’s website states.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization, and 56 other rights organizations sent an open letter to European lawmakers last year detailing their concerns with the law, The Post reported.
“Article 13 appears to provoke such legal uncertainty that online services will have no other option than to monitor, filter and block EU citizens’ communications if they are to have any chance of staying in business,” the letter said.
As for the reaction online, it was best supped up in one tweet:
— Shawn Smith (@floppy115) June 10, 2018
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The longest-tenured writer at BizPac Review, Tom grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills.
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