Unlucky 13

For those of you have have been following the EU's controversial Article 13 battle, let me tell you that we all may heave a sigh of relief. It's over. The copyright restrictions are being rehauled and reconsidered, and thank whatever higher powers or ethereal concepts you believe in that it did. (Also thanks to Julia Reda, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Jimmy Wales, and others who protested this bill.)

For those of you who haven't been following this affair, Article 13 was a part of a much larger copyright law reworking voted on by the EU. Had it passed, it would have-- look, I don't want to say that it would have been the end of the Internet. It would have been the end of Fimfiction, I can state that pretty clearly. Also YouTube, Wikipedia, lots of social media sites, etc.

Article 13 would have meant that uploading copyrighted content on the Internet would be nigh-impossible. That means no fanfiction, no fan art, no cosplay photos, no remixes. If your work included anything held under copyright by another party, it would be gone.

At least as important, though less publicized, Article 11 would have kept people from linking to other sites without paying for it. This would make it incredibly difficult for nonprofit informational sites, such as Wikipedia, to survive. It would also be a nightmare for any journalists or academics who need that freedom of access to content to do their jobs.

As an American, I'm not completely sure how much that bill would affect me directly. But it would certainly mean that all the EU-based creators and sites I enjoy regularly would very likely stop producing output. Very probably, the old content would be taken down or made inaccessible. All of that information would just be-- gone. And that's before the racist Oompa-Loompa in the White House decided that he wanted to follow suit.

This bill was passed as an attempt to protect copyright holders, mainly record labels, from being hurt. I can understand their reasoning. I won't get deep into that, but copyright holders do need some protections for their investments. However, this bill was nothing but a glorified censorship machine, and it very nearly passed into law. And barely anyone talked about it. That is absolutely terrifying. So what I'm trying to say here is please do celebrate. Celebrate our continued freedoms on the Internet, our freedom of speech and research and creation. But be aware that this could happen again. And next time we might not be so lucky. Forewarned is forearmed.

Yours still,

-6&7

Edit: The suggested laws are being edited. They will be voted on in September. Keep your eyes peeled and ears open.