If you’ve every created something like, oh, I don’t know a website, you’ve likely dealt with copyrighting. This is true for most things, in fact. That novel on your nightstand, the show you’ve got queued for streaming, and even that song you’ve got set as your ringtone, all of these are likely copyrighted and, if you plan on using copyrighted material on your website, the rules may be changing for us all soon.
Why would these laws from the EU affect me?
Unsurprisingly, the internet has spread far and wide. I can go to websites from any number of different countries with ease and, as such, they can visit yours.
Because the internet is so widespread, and because there is no world government, laws regarding content on the internet are rather lax. So, why might these new copyright laws affect you? Because, believe it or not, most countries just tend to adopt internet laws from the EU.
What are these new regulations?
To keep things simple, the directive gives content creators and publishers more control over how their content is viewed and used and more ways to earn from it. It can even make it easier for content to be used for educational or cultural reasons.
There are also a few articles which may affect web platforms that allow content to be uploaded and news aggregation services. Article 11 will require these services to pay publishers whenever they show portions of their content in search results.
Article 17 is another one that may affect your website as it makes for-profit platforms responsible for any copyright infringing content found on it.
What can I do about it?
For starters, take a breath. It’s not definite just yet and even if it is soon, it’s only in the EU for now.
If this does start affecting you, or you expect it to and want to make changes now, just keep a tighter leash on what you allow on your website. Require content uploads to be reviewed beforehand or find a filter that will help with this.