Article 13: Balkanising The Internet Or A Champion For Copyright Holders?

The text for the much anticipated Article 13 of the European Copyright Directive (the "Directive") has finally been agreed upon as of 13 February. Last year the European Parliament voted through the initial draft version of the new Directive, complete with the controversial Article 13 provision which aims to make user-upload services legally responsibility for copyright infringement on their platforms. Now widely referred to as the "meme ban", Article 13 would mean sites such as Vimeo, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Soundcloud (sites which host user-generated content) will become liable for the copyrighted material they host. For many online content sharing service providers ("Online Platforms"), this is the vast majority of their content.