In brief

EU Parliament voted in favour of controversial copyright directive (article 11 aka ‘Link tax’ and article 13 aka the ‘MEME ban’). They target digital content. This law has impact on previously voted laws for digital content.

Consequences

Tech (giants) will be forced to do more in order to stop spreading copyrighted material on their platforms and be held responsible.

First in line are websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

Today the responsibility to avoid copyright violations lays within the party that produces the copyrighted material or represents them.

Shift from content originator (usually the companies that produce audio, video or written content) to content sharers.

Article 11

Article 11: share to copyrighted articles will implicate a certain tax (payment)

If you share parts (not clear how much) of an article you’d be violating the copyright law and need to pay a fee (tax) to the author

This could, and most likely will, narrow the amount of information found on the internet and give large content providers more power to frame content and make the news

This article could — in a certain way — slow down or even stop

Article 13

Article 13: (social) media will be held responsible to filter/remove content such as MEMEs

However, this isn’t law yet. It still has to go through a series of steps before it becomes finalised as an EU directive and then it still has to be implemented in law by by member states.

Opportunities

(some) opportunities for blockchain startups

For the rebels:

Decentralizing content sharing and linking would take away the responsible entity

The ecosystem is responsible as a whole

Takes away a ‘problem’ but doesn’t take away the fact that it’s still copyrighted content

For the rest:

Blockchain technology could facilitate

Audit trail

What content is shared by who and when

Reverse track and trace from content downto originator

Automatic reward system for shared copyrighted content

The ‘pay for clicked content’ can be solved by design by using blockchain in a simple way

Tokenization payment for linking copyrighted content

Allow registration on a central ledger (blockchain) on copyrighted content

Visual and auditory content can be registered on a central ledger

Algorithms to ‘recognize’ copyrighted content (patterns)

Not everything is copyrighted — blockchain can facilitate

Register

Consult

Keep track on spread/usage

Keep track on violations on copyright

To read deatils about what the Directive on Copyright is and who is in favour and against https://www.wired.co.uk/article/what-is-article-13-article-11-european-directive-on-copyright-explained-meme-ban

What could this mean for QLC Chain?

QLC Chain offers the technology and framework to build and maintain everything stated above — for the future rebels and for the -by the book- people. Content sharing and micro transactions will gain in importance, demanding more and more TPS from blockchain systems. QLC Chain is ready for that and all these things can be implemented at a finger snap.

What’s next?

In January 2019, the Directive will go back to the European Parliament for a vote on the final wording. This is just ahead of elections to the European Parliament, so MEPs may well start paying attention to vocal constituents as they start to consider the prospect of their re-election.

Assuming the Directive passes, member states of the EU then have two years to pass laws that will bring their laws in line with the new regulations. EU directives aren’t laws in themselves, but simply compel national governments to pass their own laws that make the directives a reality, so it still very much remains to be seen how any of the articles in the Directive will actually be implemented when it comes to the real world.

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