Europe’s new copyright laws might pose problems for startups

European Parliament has voted to implement the copyright legislation that will have far-reaching consequences to the media, startups, business and almost every other industry. The two articles in question, 11 and 13, have the potential to affect Europe’s appeal to businesses.

Intended to help news organisations thrive, the articles could leave them in worse situations than they are currently in. Article 11 requires any registered person or company to buy a licence from the original publishers before they can so much as publish or show online, even a snippet of journalistic content. Whether it is a blog managed by a person or a big company like Google or Facebook, they would have to buy the licence before they can quote the newspaper or show a preview of the content. Such attempts in Spain and Germany have seen Google News shut shop as the efforts and investments are disproportionate to the service it provides.

Article 13 requires anything that can be classified as a ‘platform’ (be it a social media platform, website, app or forum), to filter every uploaded content before it is published, for copyright infringement. It is suggested that this is technically impossible to achieve, and runs the risk of companies facing enormous fines.

These articles pose high risks for startups and businesses, due to vague legislations, and could very easily push startups and SMEs to establish themselves in friendlier environments of Canada, New Zealand and others.

Read more about how the articles could harm the economy as well as large number of businesses here.