On Tuesday the EU voted in favor in of a new law that restricts how copyright content is posted online. The EU copyright directive is a plan to put more copyright laws in place on the internet and will affect everything from memes to live streams.

This directive will lead to upload filters on most services online. There will be less content available online and sharing content will be almost impossible. Many creator content will be blocked as well and only online platforms with enough money will be able to comply with the requirements. The internet platforms will also be liable for the content their users upload.

People in the tech industry are against the legislation for obvious reasons. They are worried that this legislation will impact how creators are able to share content. The internet has become a place for creativity, memes, and sharing things and this will greatly affect this culture.

Part of the culture of memes is taking the same image and using it in different contexts. These laws will make it so that people can’t use images, music, art, or anything else created by someone else without their permission. That means that for memes you would have to try to contact the owner or original creator before you can use the image, which is nearly impossible.

People are against this legislation and there have been many influential people speaking out against it. Julia Reda a Member of the European Parliament is a very vocal critic and took to Twitter to say the vote was a “dark day for internet freedom.” Five million people have signed a petition against the legislation. There was also a protest against it over this past weekend with 100,000 protesters.

The European Union has voted to pass the legislation with a vote and the resident states of the EU have two years to implement the legislation which will be hard for big and small companies alike.

This affects US-based companies and US users as well as people in the EU. US companies will have to comply with the regulations as well if they want to be able to have their website shown in the EU. There will be less content available to users in the US because of the creators in the EU having restrictions.

Youtubers, live-streamers and meme creators will have to be even more careful with their content so it doesn’t get blocked or restricted. America might even have to adopt similar copyright laws in several years.