Okay, gather round everyone. We need to talk. Big thread, sorry, but I would like you to read it.
My name’s Niall and I do the tweets here. (You probably know that already.) The discourse online has been in a bad shape lately (you probably know that too), and something’s about to go a bit wrong as a result.
You might have heard of the upcoming EU Copyright Directive? Lots of people have campaigned against it – smart people who care about net neutrality and freedom of speech. We’re campaigning for it. I’m gonna try to explain why:
The documents setting out the directive are massive. Hundreds of pages. Our Chief Executive, Nicola, is a copyright lawyer and went through the whole lot. It took forever, but we *know* what’s in the Directive. Every line.
Here are the key arguments we’re hearing against the directive, and why we think they’re misleading:
1 - “You won’t be able to link to other people’s content” – incorrect! Hyperlinks are explicitly excluded from all the proposals. I mean... come on. This would be ridiculous. I know ministers aren’t the most tech-savvy, but they know what hyperlinks are.
2 – “Wikipedia will be threatened” – no! Wikipedia and other non-commercial services are ALSO explicitly excluded from the proposals, and rightly so.
3 – “Memes will be illegal” – as much as I would personally love this, memes invariably come under parody and are already covered by an exception to copyright. Your right to meme is, unfortunately, unassailable.
4 – “This will hurt small businesses” – yes, small businesses may have to pay more – but businesses should be paying a fair share for artists’ work anyway! Artists aren’t free sources of content for other people to make money!
4a – If one single person says the word ‘exposure’ in the replies I’m going to Kick Off
5 – “This will hurt creators” – are you kidding me? Creators need rights to their creations! If you spend a month painting your OC, people shouldn’t be able to stick it on a T-shirt and sell it on funkytees.biz or whatever without paying you for it.
5a – Creators use copyrighted work too! They will also pay! Strong copyright makes it easier to make a living from your work, not harder!
5b - IT WILL STOP THINGS LIKE THIS FROM HAPPENING theguardian.com/fashion/2016/j…
6 – “This will prevent creators taking inspiration from other works” – no, it won’t. The vast majority of creators’ unions in Europe support these proposals because we understand that they won’t prevent this.
7 – “This is censorship” – this isn’t censorship! It’s the government saying that the work you create belongs to you unless you say so, and that you need to give permission for people to use it.
8 – “This inhibits the flow of information, it inhibits free speech” – it does not. Cultivating an environment where creators find it nearly impossible to live off their work *does*. You’ll struggle to find time to speak out if you have to work two jobs to make ends meet.
9 – “This would only benefit big internet multinationals” – NO. NOOOO. Stopping the directive would be a huge victory for these companies! They’d be able to continue ripping creators off at their leisure. Facebook and Google want you to shut the directive down! WE DON’T.
Untangling this situation has been a nightmare. There are too many takes flying around and it’s nearly impossible to get the story straight, even for the many people acting in good faith. We’ve got a more detailed explainer here: societyofauthors.org/News/News/2018…
Nobody’s hearing about all the good things in the Directive – like the transparency triangle. Authors will get proper accounting of how well their work’s doing, and a proper share of the profits if they do well.
These bestseller clauses and obligations on platforms will help creators get a fairer share for the work they do and afford to keep creating. That’s why we need the Directive. Creators are being stiffed and we need strong legislation to make the big guys play fair.
Creators must be paid fairly for their work. This is our given. We’ve gone through the documents (EVERY. PAGE.) and I can guarantee you that most of the people weighing in on it have not. That’s why the huge majority of creators’ organisations support the proposals: WE READ THEM.
Doing the legwork - digging out the truth - is our job. It’s why I sit here all day fixing PDF viewers and breathing in asbestos dust. Write to your MEP today urging them to support the proposals. We’ve done the legwork. Trust us – this is the right call. societyofauthors.org/News/News/2018…
