Pewdiepie Takes Aim at EU's New Link Law

YouTube’s biggest star has picked a new fight with Europe’s biggest regulatory body, the EU. Get ready for the memes, folks (they’re already here).

Today, Pewdiepie published a video titled “This video is blocked.” - the title making light of the more stringent regulations just passed by the EU.

The law is actually a series of amendments recently passed by the European Parliament to the controversial Copyright Directive. The two most polarizing elements of the amendments are Article 11 and Article 13.

Article 11, known informally as the “Link Tax”, makes it so that online platforms or aggregator sites (for example, Google News) may be required to pay a licensing fee to publishers when re-sharing their content. This would change the foundational model of how content is shared across the internet.

Article 13, the “Upload Filter”, is the section that has creators such as Pewdiepie so concerned - it would make platforms such as YouTube responsible for preventing copyright infringement in content uploaded by their users. While it’s unclear how each amendment would actually apply in real life, there is some fear that innocuous content as simple as memes would be banned because it’s technically re-purposed content without a license.

In his video, Pewdiepie went on to share several memes making fun of Axel Voss, the architect of the controversial legislation, as well as other top memes of the week.

In an infuriating twist, is seems Axel Voss admitted that he was not even aware of what was in the legislation he proposed and voted for, and that corrupt corporate interests are behind these stringent new rules (because of course they are!) Another amendment would, for example, ban taking photos at live sporting matches - a longtime goal of sports venues/companies looking to sell their own official pictures and merchandise.

The consequences of this corrupt legislation is grim, but hey - at least we’ve got Pewdiepie on our side.