Article 13 of the EU's draft Copyright Directive will literally destroy the Internet as we know it. I am not exaggerating. Even by EU standards it is draconian, and MEPs will vote on this directive next week.
From mandatory filtering to link taxes, this is frightening in its scope. It will make it almost impossible to produce memes. Most of the articles on this website would fail the test, as links to other news websites would have to be paid for. Who can afford to pay these fees? We certainly can't, and neither can the average blogger. Only large news organisations will be able to.
Have a look at this video. It's quite long at eleven minutes, but it sums up everything that is wrong with Article 13.
Write to your MEPs to express your views. A template letter can be found here.
I have been told by a Conservative MEP that the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Group are opposed to these proposals, but the voting could be very tight. Now is the time to take action before it is too late.
Photo Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:European_Parliament_Strasbourg_Hemicycle_-_Diliff.jpg
