Raven Cohen
Article 13 is a new EU law that would require technology platforms like Facebook, Youtube, Facebook to filter out copyright material if the companies don’t have licenses for that material.
Recently EU added Memes as an exception to the rule, however it is unclear how tech companies will define a meme or if they can filter out other copyright material while allowing memes.
Imagine you are a tech company. You would probably put a program in place. First you would make a library of all copyright material you want to block then create a program that would check if someone is uploading that material then block that content or take it down. Memes are generated from copyright material: movies, TV shows, video games, comics, or photos. These new programs would likely filter out memes after seeing it is part copyright material.
One site, Gorilla Meme has created a Meme generator that has photos of C0. This means that you can create a meme and not worry about it being filtered out.
The future of memes is in the hands of technology. We need more solutions that will follow the new EU article 13 law and allow people to express themselves. Let’s hope more solutions are developed to solve this meme crisis.
