These are my ten predictions for how the world will change online after the EU Copyright Directive comes into effect in 2021.
Episode #9-33 released on March 31, 2019
Article 11 and 13 passed, but not before being renamed to Article 15 and 17. This is what may happen in the next two years following that decision of the EU Parliament.
Let's start with a few facts, when the GDPR came into effect, many web-sites actually favored blocking European IP addresses over universally accepting a privacy policy that affected everyone equally or designing a system that could detect where the person was coming from. Knowing this, we can presume that a series of new articles within the EU Copyright Directive could potentially lead to a series are far more prejudicial treatment of EU residents when trying to access web-sites outside the EU itself.
First prediction, because of the way that each member of the EU gets the ability to edit or modify to some degree the copyright directive in their respective country, there will be no clear way for anyone in other parts of the world to know if they are, in fact, breaking the law or not when their website is being accessed by someone in the EU. This will lead to content being funnel through copyright filters with preferential treatment favoring larger creators, big businesses and television, music, and movie studios.
Second prediction, websites with smaller budgets or lacking the technology to filter for copyright will either have to rent the technology from companies with such technology or they may choose to avoid the issues altogether by blocking the EU from their website. Blocking the EU will effectively require users in the EU to use VPNs to gain access to those websites.
Third prediction, it may be possible that a business to business service is created allowing businesses not located in the EU to obtain information required to block EU citizens using a VPN, or they may opt for the Netflix approach of blocking all VPNs from accessing their website entirely to avoid being exposed to litigation from EU member states.
Fourth prediction, the creation of contracts, specifically targeting creators, requiring that the creator reimburse all penalties received by the hosting and promoting of content, if any content contains unlicensed copyrighted material.
Fifth prediction, the creation of a special kind of insurance policy to help protect websites and content delivery platforms from copyright litigation when dealing with the EU member states when EU members can freely access the website unimpeded by blocking technologies, VPN blockages, etc. This may be a direct extension to the contracts required by content creators.
Sixth prediction, in an effort to protect their ability to create content, with fair use in mind, some content creators may block the EU from accessing their channel, and the option may actually become available to content creators in many platforms itself. A basic extension of this already exists on YouTube, but I am predicting that the option will be made far more granular and specific, too.
Seventh Prediction, game streaming will change dramatically. Considering the number of parts in a video game, it is possible that platforms will have to license universally entire games and have a white list of allowed games where everything including the audio is licensed or streamers will simply be given a choice disable audio or license themselves the content.
Eighth prediction, the gaming industry will change how licensing is achieved for newer titles with online promotion including the terms online streaming into the licensing of music and other content into video games. Some gaming companies may be forced to opt for streamer modes that completely exclude in-game music properly, some music companies may start licensing music with the games for free promotional reasons, etc.
Ninth prediction, all content uploaded to bigger content delivery platforms will become inaccessible permanently until creators remove automated content claims made against their creations, which include audio, video, etc.
Tenth prediction, creators and companies will force copyright holders to provide coherent universal international licensing for content or various right holders may be forced into bankruptcy as companies simply refuse to support uncooperative rights holders who continue to desire holding on to the current walled gardened copyright licensing paradigm we currently have. This kind of move may eliminate many of the nightmare issues of getting content licensed for the Internet, where we treat the Internet as a single market while licensing is currently on a per region basis, on the most part.
What are your predictions for 2021 after the EU copyright directive comes into effect online?
Host : Steve Smith | Music : | Editor : Steve Smith | Producer : Zed Axis Dot Net