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Article 13 is a new EU directive, which has been passed today – by 348 MEPs to 278, which could kill Youtube.
This ruling means that if you use any form of copyrighted content in your video, the onus of liability is passed from you to Youtube, and while Youtube have basically put a stop to people mass uploading copyrighted films and TV shows to brand new channels and then monetising them – by setting monetisation requirements to have a minimum of 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch-time in the past year, now, it causes a problem for content creators who use small pieces of copyrighted content on the grounds of fair use, which IS legal to do so.
However, what could well happens is that Youtube – and similar sites – could set up a process where every upload has to be vetted before it’s allowed to go live. Why is this a problem? Because, every single minute, the amount of content uploaded to Youtube is 500 HOURS!
Viral memes are still allowed, but… how do you sort through 500 hours of content per minute? Answer: You don’t.
And what about existing videos? Almost all of my vlogs on my DVDfeverGames channel feature a flourish from The Brazillian by Genesis, hence my saying, “Cue Genesis”. Do they all have to go? If I have to edit and re-upload, any pieces that have gone viral won’t do so again.
So, Article 13 is unworkable, and a lot of companies will just call it a day as it will open up a zillion cans of worms.
If you voted Remain, and you don’t use sites like Youtube, then ‘happy days’ for you, eh?
Musicians like Debbie Harry and Paul McCartney (and when were they last relevant?) are pleased with this because it will stop people uploading their music to Youtube, but in 2019, the site has been going for 14 years, so musicians should’ve got a handle on this much sooner and set up their own channel. However, if they all do that, then Youtube comes across more like a corporate platform than one for user-generated content.
World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee is also happy with this ruling, but then if he wanted to make money out of it all, he should’ve thought about that 30 years ago.
Naturally, Google – who own Youtube – say “the decision would “harm Europe’s creative and digital industries”.
European Parliament Rapporteur Axel Voss has said that the legislation was designed to protect people’s livelihoods and adds: “This directive is an important step towards correcting a situation which has allowed a few companies to earn huge sums of money without properly remunerating the thousands of creatives and journalists whose work they depend on. It helps make the internet ready for the future, a space which benefits everyone, not only a powerful few.”
Quite frankly, he sounds like a stupid-head.
The new directive hasn’t yet been approved, and it could take two years to do so, but if it does, then as well as Article 13, there’s also Article 11, which states that search engines and news aggregate platforms should pay to use links from news websites. Personally, I don’t know why as the search engines are driving traffic to those websites, so they would be grateful. I know I am every time someone searches for something and they get to DVDfever.co.uk
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.