LoveJoJ

So, Article 13 just passed the second stage of voting in the European Parliament. Before everyone freaks out, the law has NOT banned memes, you will still be able to post content from your favourite TV shows/films/bands, it will very likely not affect you at all.

Article 13 is mainly designed to stop people from using copyrighted music on their websites, and from pirating entire episodes of TV shows. That means you can still post Doctor Who gifsets and be just fine, but linking to the entire episode on a dodgy pirate sight might get you in trouble.

It is true that Article 13 introduces the need for large websites to use ‘upload filters’ to screen content, but again, it will not screen out your memes. The only real problem with this is that song parodies are under fire if they’re too close to the original song, which is…not great, but not the devastating internet-ruining law I’ve seen people label it as.

Article 13, in essence, makes it harder for people to pirate content, but it will not actually limit your ability to post edited content about your favourite things, like gifs, video edits, fanart, or fanfiction. At the very worst, sites like Tumblr and Twitter will have to pay a licensing fee to allow their users to post content from copyrighted media, but that’s out of your hands as a user. It will not affect you personally.

So if you’re freaking out right now, my best advice to you is, don’t. You will be fine. If you still want the law to be stopped or changed, the European Parliament uses a ‘trilogue’ system of voting, meaning that there are three rounds of voting on new bills, and Article 13 has only just passed round 2. If you want to stop or change the law, call or email your MEP before the third round of voting.