awed-frog:

astolat:

finney13s:

devikafernando:

i-ran-away-without-a-map:

unknownpoliticalobject:

asthesea-breezehitsmylungs:

Also, I’m in Europe and ngl, had no idea this was even an article up for debate let alone it being fucking passed.

Don’t panic! This was expected at this stage and it is only the beginning. If you are a European and feel passionate about this, please keep on reading and help!

So what has happened so far … the Commission has drafted up a long overdue copyright reform. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/procedure/EN/2016_280 It contains a lot of good, and some bad: mainly Article 11 and 13.

This was put forward as a whole to the European Parlament, where it was voted down on the 5th of July 2018

This meant, this will not go through the fast way, and will be subject to scrutiny and change. 

The Commission made some alterations https://eur-lex.europa.eu/procedure/EN/2016_280 and put it forward again. If Parlament would have voted it down again, it probably would have meant back to the drawing board, but most people (including me) agree that Europe does need copyright reform, so on the second vote it passed the first step:

So what happens now? 

This will now go into what is called the Trilogue, where Commission, Parlament and representatives of all national governments will sit together to make alterations until everybody is happy implementing the regulation.

This means we can now influence this via our MEPs and our National Government!

In countries that are red your government is likely to support Article 13.

What to do now?

There are a lot of organisations that organise actions against article 13. Check out their websites and get in touch with your MEP or local government and let them know you are unhappy about this.

• https://www.saveyourinternet.eu/ 
• https://epicenter.works/
• https://www.changecopyright.org/
• https://juliareda.eu/eu-copyright-reform/

… and many many more, just google to find one in your country.

Also, as @asthesea-breezehitsmylungs pointed out, a lot of people are not aware of this going on. So make them aware! Share the memes and point them to the petitions. And don’t just complain how shit this is, get in touch with your politicians!

Oh good.

Yo, everyone, EU or not, please at least signal boost this shit. I’ve said it before and I will say it again: those two articles will suck majorly for all of us.

Like dude, how much time do you spend enjoying various things that relate to, Idk, your favourite show or book series. It’ll probs be gone. Funny memes and shit? Nah our generation doesn’t fucking need to laugh, it’s not like half of us are already depressed or anything. And so many other things that are cool about the internet, I’m not even gonna mention how some big, cool places like YouTube and Tumblr will be fucked by this.

So seriously, there’s only so much a small bunch of people can do. We need some noise on this. As much as I hate to admit it, some things require some fat numbres to be paid attention to. So even if you’re not planning on taking any action yourself, the best thing to do would be to spread this to everyone you trust to either get involved or pay it forward like you did.

And seriously, every little thing helps, ok? We should have a say in how the laws that deeply affect us are made.

SIGNAL BOOST

Signal boost again to all EU peeps. Keep pushing your MEPS.

Guys, please reblog and if you’re in the EU, please please contact your MEPs and express your objections to article 11 and article 13 and specifically that you want more protections for user-created content and expression. 

Also, whatever happens to Youtube and Tumblr will be nothing in comparison to what regulations like this do to smaller volunteer-run sites like AO3. The real problem here is that it’s yet another step in the networkification of the Internet and making it much harder for anyone who doesn’t have money and lawyers to share their content. 

Also want to point out ‘user-created content’ includes everything. If this thing passes in its current form, you won’t be able to:

• share your own holiday pictures if there’s a monument in the background
• share any kind of picture that includes a logo or a brand (think cute selfie with a random Subway or McDonald’s in the background)
• share a WhatsApp video of those beautiful fireworks, that funny bird or your kid doing cute shit with your friends and family because the Eiffel Tower is in the background
• upload a profile pic of you wearing your SPN t-shirt
• make gifs 
• make crack such as [TV show] + textposts / Onion headlines / tweets
• add screencaps to your metas or reviews
• share the cover of that fantastic book you just read
• share images of any painting, statue, or monument
• share gifs, videos or pics of any sport event 
• create or share memes
• make videogame-related tutorials featuring reviews, walkthroughs and whatever else
• make fanvids
• sing or play your own covers of other artists (alive or dead)
• see (or contribute to) wikia sites for your favourite shows and movies
• watch stuff like the Pop Culture Detective’s videos
• share fanfiction and drabbles on FFN and tumblr 
• share fanart or original art on DeviantArt

The bottom line is that big corporations will get to decide what’s visible online and what isn’t, and there’s no silver lining there: in the vast majority of cases they’ll probably leave that up to some algorithm (the accuracy simulation exercises aren’t looking very promising for now tbh), and when they don’t, it’ll be to deliberately target content that goes against their economic interests.