If I am a content or media creator, how the new rule under EU is going to affect me?

About 7,000 online platforms, working within the European Union's provision, will be affected by these rule. Note, the agreement on the refined copyright law still needs to be approved by the European Parliament and the Bloc's member states. Although that's no more than sheer formality and this is almost a done deal, big companies like Facebook and Google are certainly expected to make their case against the new propositions. (An online petition against this directive has already garnered more than 4.5 million signatures.)

The new directives on copyright have a total of 17 individual Articles. However, two of them, in specific, are in the eye of the storm: Article 11 and Article 13.

Article 11, with certain exemptions, states that news and media aggregator sites would have to pay fair remuneration to content publishers. So, if you're publishing/uploading original contents on the likes of Facebook, Google News, andLinkedIn, you can ask money from these platforms for your work. How exactly this will work is not very clear at the moment. How much the online platforms will pay the publishers/content creators? How will they pay? These are critical questions.

Article 13, which covers "online content sharing services", aims at limiting how the copyright contents are shared on online platforms. This requires the likes of Facebook to put a filter that removes copyrighted material from their websites. So, a Facebook page, say, that shares your favorite memes would have its content filtered out unless it is the original creator of that content.

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Yes, the new EU rules are meant to help the artists, creators, and others in the creative field get remunerated for their work. And it's fairly a good thing for them. However, one of the biggest concerns here is that copyright law will also choke free speech.

Since, online platforms like Facebook and Google will now be more liable to the content creators and copyright infringement, to avoid any penalty, they might actively sensor information. And this may significantly limit the flow of information that the internet is supposed to help us with.

Besides, putting filters to block out copyright contents is not only expensive but it's also isn’t free from errors. How they are going to do this, no one is sure.

As many have already said, the new EU rule literally changes how the internet works.

Coming to your question, to whatever I have understood, if you're a content or media creator, here's how the new EU rules will affect you:

• If you want to upload your content on channels like Facebook, you'll have to be the original creator of that content.

• (This is my guess.) Since it's very unlikely that big online platforms would pay the content creators, but they would also NOT want to curb the flow of contents on their websites, they would actively ask content creators to hand over the copyright of their work to them.

• (Again, my guess.) You would have to decide whether to hand over your content's copyright to them or not. If not, you won't be able to publish your contents on that platform.

• There's also a good chance though that these online platforms can introduce some monetary plan for the big publishers who have more fans, followers, and engagement.

• BUT, all in all, if you're an original content creator, you would be benefitted. Even if not, it won't negatively affect you. BUT for all the content aggregators, it's bad news.

I personally feel the new EU rule can place big challenges on the way of the free flow of information. And there could be plenty of censorship in place, which isn’t good for anybody.

While big companies have opined against these changes by the EU, let's see how they respond in action.