THE DAY THE MEMES DIED
Image: Is this the end for Memes? Credits to Pexels.
Q: WHAT CAN BE WORSE THAN THE DREADED INTERNET?
A: Not having Internet at all!!!
The fate of the memes as we know them today, are in the hands of people who may not even know what a meme is.
One of the good ideas that came with the Internet was the ability for all users to share, spread and receive information. Fascinating out-of-print books of which you can almost smell their smudgy ancient scent, amazing recipes for chocolate-cashew ice cream extravaganzas, computers connected all over the world to listen to outer space looking for a hint of extraterrestrial life, lightning speed communications, PhDs cooperating with peers in remote locations, work from home opportunities, are there for you at your fingertips, through the Internet.
This genius concept brought with it a myriad of good things, like Wikipedia, Open University, news from the street, Youtube, democracy to dictatorial regimes, live streaming, free educational and entertainment content, emails, and… memes. Yes, memes.
On the other hand, some bad apples brought also some bad things to the ‘net, like copy right infringement, and fake news.
But the changes brought by the Internet, became inevitable and they permeated our lives.
Forever.
Now fast forward to today. How can regular everyday laws (of a somewhat non-tech world that is mostly out of sync with the fast train that is the tech world) be applied smoothly to the Internet? The answer is: Not easily, and there will be flaws.
Case in point: Articles 11 and 13 of the Copyright proposal of the European Commission.
Article 11, in short, would have giant platforms like Google, pay a sort of commission or tax just for showing news or links to news.
What he legislation is trying to do here is to take away power from those giants, via a paid license, and handle it back to news organizations.
Article 13, although trying to keep music and video pirates at bay, could affect a good and sizable portion of the Internet like live streaming, parody videos, and yes, memes.
This article makes the web hosting enterprises, directly responsible for what the users do, almost forcing them to install mandatory upload filters. Translated to regular English it means bye-bye memes, because most of them are based on “democratically agreed copyright flexibilities such as parody and quotation”. Isn’t that crazy?
OMG! of all, it had to be the memes.
But not all is lost yet. The final EU vote shall take place between December 2018 and January 2019, enough time for you to urge your European buddies to contact their legislators to prevent them for voting on this proposal.
C’mon, start sending those emails and memes right now, before its too late and while it’s legal.
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