What is Article 13? The EU’s divisive new copyright plan explained

After years of debate and negotiations, politicians have passed sweeping changes following a final vote in the European Parliament. University of Galway “is aware of an issue impacting some Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Outlook Calendars, Teams etc,” noted the Irish university’s IT group on X. “This is an intermittent issue impacting Microsoft 365 customers globally. Microsoft is aware & investigating.” Microsoft is investigating an issue with its Microsoft 365 service and its Teams app, with some users reporting to DownDetector that they are having problems using services such as Exchange and Outlook. A revamp of the EU’s copyright rules has passed its final hurdle and will now come into law. It was Article 13 which prompted fears over the future of memes and GIFs – stills, animated or short video clips that go viral – since they mainly rely on copyrighted scenes from TV and film.

In a service post, Reddit said it’s aware of a “degraded service” for users of its website and app, and added that it’s investigating the issue. Reddit users are complaining about problems connecting to the online forum, with thousands of people telling DownDetector on Wednesday that the service is down. German MEP Julia Reda suggested services would have to “buy licences for anything that users may possibly upload” and called it an “impossible feat”.

What is the controversial Article 13?

When you click on a link, you may have little clue ahead of time what lies beyond. The objections to Article 11 are less vocal, but they’re out there nonetheless. It’s unclear what exactly would have to be licensed (snippets? headlines? links themselves?) so the jury is out on how much of an impact it might have. In a letter addressed to the president of the EP, Antonio Tajani, around 70 internet luminaries, including Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, expressed their concern that the provision could cause “substantial harm” to the internet. Both the Copyright Directive and GDPR could dramatically affect and change things about the internet as we know it. But they also differ significantly, not just in scope, but also in how they’re viewed and received by the world beyond Brussels.

In fact, Google conducted a study to test how this could impact aggregate news platforms and independent publishers and found a 45% drop in traffic to the publishing news outlets. No, Article 13, which became Article 17 in the final version of the directive, did not end up banning internet memes. If you thought Article 13 is controversial, Article 11 could be more so. It forces search engines and other aggregators to pay license fees How to buy avalanche on short snippets of content.

1. It said the rules would make information harder to find online and thus make it harder for its volunteers to source information.
2. Music and video producers have lobbied hard to see the new changes passed.
3. At its heart is Article 13, now known as Article 17, which puts a far greater onus on major tech platforms to stop copyrighted material from being illegally uploaded to their platforms.
4. The Directive on Copyright would make online platforms and aggregator sites liable for copyright infringements, and supposedly direct more revenue from tech giants towards artists and journalists.

Since most of the other sites are political action groups that want your money, and many forex risk management others do a garbage job of explaining this, I’ll try to explain this as briefly and simply as possible.

Did the EU Ban Memes? Explanation of Article 13

In a statement emailed to CBS News, Reddit alpari review said the service is coming back online. “There was a bug in a recent update we made, but a fix is in place and we’re ramping back up,” the company said. The EU’s member states now have two years to adopt the rules into their national laws.

Why Did People Worry Article 13 Would Ban Memes?

It’d force all online platforms to police and prevent the uploading of copyrighted content, or make people seek the correct licenses to post that content. For the most part this would mean filters that check content as it’s uploaded would be mandatory for platforms including Facebook, Instagram, GitHub, Reddit and Tumblr, but also many much smaller platforms. The Directive on Copyright and its most controversial component, Article 13, requires online platforms to filter or remove copyrighted material from their websites. It’s this article that people think could be interpreted as requiring platforms to ban memes, but more on that later. Although the #saveyourinternet campaign has focused on stirring up opposition to the directive among YouTubers and users, the highest echelons of YouTube management have also got in on the opposition. On October 22, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki published a blogpost warning against the impact of the Directive.

However, Microsoft users were still posting about errors and problems connecting to the company’s services on Monday afternoon. “We’ve identified a recent change which we believe has resulted in impact. We’ve started to revert the change and are investigating what additional actions are required to mitigate the issue,” Microsoft added in a subsequent post. The platform resembles Musk’s X, with a “discover” feed and a chronological feed for accounts that users follow.

What is Article 13 and will it kill memes? WIRED Explains

However, critics say the opposite is true, with smaller websites most adversely affected by the directive. In a second blog post on November 12 she said there were “unintended consequences” of Article 13. “The parliament’s approach is unrealistic in many cases because copyright owners often disagree over who owns what rights,” she wrote. “If the owners cannot agree, it is impossible to expect the open platforms that host this content to make the correct rights decisions.” YouTube’s current Content ID gives copyright owners the right to claim ownership of content already live on YouTube. The system then allows them to either block the video or monetise it by running advertising against it.

This will affects our ‘Muricans in the United States too, since many sites we use on a daily basis are accessible worldwide. Reddit, YouTube (who already complies to an extent), other Google services, and really any mainstream service we have today will need to comply with this law. And, knowing the current FCC, the US may actually adopt this as law too since it has a positive effect on business here. That rose to as many as 5,000 reports by noon Eastern Time, before complaints on DownDetector began to ebb in the late afternoon.

Reddit, which went public in March, last month reported its first profit as a publicly traded company. The social media service also reported that its daily users surged 47% to 97.2 million compared with the same time last year. Even so, there is still a concern that smaller sites will struggle to track down and pay copyright holders or to develop content filters that automatically block suspect material.