It was a beautiful day in Washington D.C. The birds were chirping, there was barely a cloud in the sky, and the temperatures were pleasant at the moment. And America was stuck in his office in the White House, filling out paper work. Again. So, when his boss called him to the oval office, America was more than happy to ditch his work and make his way over. That was, until he saw the serious look on his boss's face.
"What's up boss man?" America asked, flopping down into the squishy arm chair in front of his boss's desk. "Here to save me from the never-ending boredom that is paperwork? Or did you miss my stunning good looks?" At the last remark, America shot his boss a wink.
"America, while I do appreciate your sense of humor I'm afraid I need you to be a bit more serious for a minute." His boss sighed. Pulling out a folder, he handed it to America. America lazily opened the file, reading over it for a few minutes. Then he looked up at his boss with a confused look.
"Really? This is what I have to take so seriously?" America asked, gesturing to the papers in front of him.
"America," His boss scolded as one would a toddler, "It's important that we keep good working relations with our allies."
"But, taking Germany out to lunch? Come on, it's Germany!" America said dismissably. "You really think I'm going to get under that guys skin? For goodness sake, we're taking about the guy who hangs out with Italy on a regular basis, I hardly think he's going to kill me for being annoying."
"America, I'm going to be blunt with you." His boss said. "You can be a whole different kind of annoying at times. But that's not the problem."
"Ouch, that hurt man." America said with a pout. "And if I'm not the problem, then what is? It's just a lunch meeting, it's not like I'm trying to talk nuclear warfare with Russia."
"Well, you see Germany isn't here just to "have lunch", as you so simply put it." America's boss said, pulling out another folder from his desk and handing it to America. "You're going to be talking to him about something important, and although it may seem silly to you, you are going to be discussing with him about the new copy right issue that's been going on. I'm sure you've heard about Article 13?"
"Uh…" America said, looking unsure.
"The meme banning law." The president explained.
"Ooh! Yeah I've heard about that!" America said suddenly, a frown pulling at the corner of his mouth. "It's messed up! How could people ban memes?! That's like banning comedy!"
"It's a bit more complicated than that." The president said, gesturing for America to open the new folder he had handed America. "In that folder is the basic outline of Article 13. At this meeting today, I want you to discuss with Germany how this is going to affect the United States."
"What? This isn't going to affect us." America scoffed, opening the folder and skimming through it with disinterest. "It's not like I'm getting a copyright law passed here. This is EU business."
"America, think for a second. This isn't just going to affect the EU, this will have effects on us as well. Have you considered how this is going to affect the company's in the United States? For one thing, sites like YouTube and Facebook are going to be affected by this."
"I still don't see how this is my problem." America said with a huff, closing the folder and standing up. "Look, if it calms you down, I'll ask Germany how this bill works, but I'm sure you're worrying about nothing. What the EU bans and doesn't ban is up to them, even if it is stupid." And with that, America walked out of the room, leaving his boss to sigh in frustration. Sometimes there was no getting through to that kid.
*LINEBREAK*
"Germany, how are you doing dude?" America asked happily, shaking Germany's arm eagerly. Germany winced a bit at the strength but gave America a slight nod.
"I am doing well, although this new copyright directive is giving me a bit of a headache." Germany said with a sigh. After they had ordered their drinks, Germany pulled out a binder of papers and gave them to America. "Are you familiar with what Article 13 is?"
"Uh, not really." America said with a frown. "I've only really heard about it through the internet."
"Stop." Germany said, holding up a hand. "Anyone who gets their information from memes, and please, I know that's exactly where you've heard it from, is not properly educated on the subject. We'll start from the top. What do you know about Article 13 from the information your boss gave you?"
Thinking for a moment, America replied, "From what I've read from the files, Article 13 is basically something that's supposed to enforce copyright laws on digital media more strictly and update existing copyright laws in the modern age."
"That's a very simple explanation, but basically yes, that's exactly it." Germany said with a nod. "And Italy hasn't stopped whining about it. He's repeatedly said if they ban meme's he's going to stop making pasta in protest."
"Jeez, that's pretty serious." America said in surprise. "I didn't think Italy liked them that much."
"While I doubt Italy could stay away from pasta for more than a day, there are bigger things on the line here than memes." Germany said seriously. "I am not exactly happy with this Article myself."
"So, this law-" America started to say but Germany cut him off.
"It's not a law yet." Germany corrected. "It's still going through the possess of becoming one and is still being revised."
"Ok, well this Article, how is it going to affect the U.S.A?" America asked. "Is this going to cause any major problems for me, or can I ignore this?"
"Do you ever get tired of your ego?" Germany asked, looking annoyed.
"Hey, this is a legitimate concern that my boss has!" America said, giving Germany a mildly annoyed look. "And if this doesn't affect me, and I'm going to be frank, I really couldn't give less of a shit. I've got a lot on my plate right now, and the last thing I need right now is more issues making my life difficult."
"Well then, I'll get straight to the point. Yes, this could affect you in the future." Germany said with a huff. "But before we get to that point you need to understand what exactly is going on, so you don't just charge randomly into the fight, screwing things up by being ignorant again."
America didn't reply, but gestured for Germany to explain.
"The Directive on Copyright puts more responsibility on major tech companies, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to hold up copyright laws than before. Right now, that job is mainly put on the Copyright holders to uphold Copyright laws. The main companies in this would be the ones that produce audio, video, and written content." Germany explained. "Under this new law, it would be up to the Major Platforms to enforce these rules."
"Ok, I'm following along so far." America said, glancing down at the menu in front of him. "Basically, instead of Disney striking down their movies off YouTube, it would be up to YouTube to strike them down instead."
"Correct." Germany said with a nod. "But what you have to understand is that Article 13 is just part of this Directive. Directive on Copyright is made up of 17 individual articles, with two articles being the most controversial. Article 13 is one of those. I'll explain the other in a moment."
"Ok, so far, I'm not seeing what's so wrong with this Directive." America said with a sigh. "So far, it just sounds like a stricter form of copyright laws. Where are the problems?"
"Under current laws, Major platforms aren't responsible for striking down Copyrighted material until the Copyright holder tells them to take it down. That means that there are people listening to Copyrighted material without paying the owners."
"Ok…"
"But the problem is, no one really knows how these platforms are going to be able to be able to identify and remove the copyrighted material. One of the past versions of the Directive was worded in such a way that it was asking platforms to scan for every piece of uploaded content and remove anything that would violate copyright from being uploaded. It was reworded to exclude certain things, like parodies from being affected, but that's where memes come up."
As America took this information in, they ordered their meals.
"Ok, so basically, Major platforms like YouTube would be responsible for filtering out anything that violates Copyright, and taking it down, but it also has to tell what a parody is." America summarized.
"Basically." Germany said, opening up the binder and handing it to America. "The problem is that the filters probably won't be able to filter things such as memes, which are based mostly on Copyrighted material. Theoretically, memes are protected under parody laws, but the system won't be good enough to sort it out. Thus, the meme ban."
"That's a long way of saying Major Online Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube will be held responsible for enforcing Copyright laws instead of Copyright holders, but the problem is that there is no easy way of filtering things automatically without banning things that are protected under other laws such as parodies." America said with a bored look.
"At least your following along." Germany said, rolling his eyes.
"Ok, so is there anything else I should know about before I fall asleep from this current events lesson?" America asked.
"Article 11 is called a "Link Tax", and will and intends to get news aggregator sites, such as Google News, to pay publishers for using snippets of their articles on their platforms. The problem at the moment is how much of the article can they use without being charged? And while at the moment people who use the articles for private and non-commercial use will not be charged, this opens up more questions, such as if someone has a huge following on, I don't know, Twitter posts adverts to their followers, is it still private and non-commercial?"
"God damn, is there anything you Europeans won't put a tax on?" America asked in disbelief. "This is worse than taxing paper."
"So, are you starting to understand?" Germany asked.
"I think so." America said slowly. "So why are you opposed to this?"
"It is interfering with the flow of free information." Germany said with a huff. "I'm worried this is going to affect Academic research. If someone working on a scientific paper must pay to source every research paper they've ever read and used, the costs would be staggering. Not only that, these articles are not only threating users on the platforms but could potentially harm smaller businesses and users that have nothing to do with what these articles are supposed to be protecting. And while I do believe that creators should have their property protected, it should not be done in such a way that it would affect ordinary users of the internet to a point where it is a major inconvenience."
"Ok, I get the picture." America said as his food was placed in front of him. "But I hate to keep bringing this up, but how is this going to affect me?"
"Consider this." Germany said, eyeing America with an unfriendly look. "No filter exists that can handle this. And the closest thing we do have to internet filters are mostly run by the American companies, which means that the United States, a.k.a you, will be able to spy on everything the Europeans post. And no one in Europe is very happy about that. Youtube let's players channels would be obliterated of the face of the earth, and YouTube as a whole would suffer greatly. You may not understand fully on this, but this is going to affect more people than you know."
"Ok, look, this is a lot to process." America said with a sigh. "I think I prefer getting my news from memes than this."
"Not everything revolves around you, America." Germany said.
"I get that. Look, legal stuff is long and boring, and I'm hungry." America said, popping a fry into his mouth. "And yeah, this stuff sucks balls, but this isn't placed in stone right now, right?"
"No, it's still open to fixing." Germany agreed.
"Well, the simplest solution to your problem, and anything that could become my problem down the road, is to just to A) not pass this in the first place, B) revise this till it isn't such a problem, or C) get it thrown out. I just want to post cat memes. Everyone wants cat memes. And a world without cat memes is not a world I want to live in." America said sagely.
"Why do I even try to talk to you?" Germany groaned. "You're more annoying than Italy!"
A/N: OK, so I discovered that I could never go into politics because doing all this research gave me a headache, laws are stupid and complicated, and I hate politics. I hope I cleared up what's been going on in Europe for my American readers, and I hope I was pretty accurate. I tried my best with this, because to be honest I hate reading anything to do with politics because it bores me to death. However, I feel like this is important enough to talk about. MEMES FOREVER! (Yes, I said I didn't like memes but I've opened up to them over the years.) ALSO, HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS BOYS AND GIRLS, BECAUSE WE'VE DONE THE IMPOSSIBLE AND HIT 1,000 FAVORITES ON THIS STORY! I CANNOT TELL YOU ALL HOW EXCITED I AM ABOUT THIS! I EVEN POSTED A BORING CHAPTER ABOUT LAWS JUST SO I COULD MAKE THIS ANOUNCMENT! (although this is still an important subject you should research.)
But let's get real for a second. You guys are amazing, and I've been counting the number of people who've favorited this story since the first person who favorited. I never expected to get over 100 people to favorite this story, let alone 1,000 of you! And yeah, it's hard coming up with new chapters sometimes, because really, there's only so much you can talk about the U.S.A before you start running out of topics. But somehow, I've come up with over 100 topics. And every chapter that isn't great makes me mad at myself because I only want to give you guys my best works. And to be honest, I've been going through some stuff in my personal life lately, and I got low. (NOT TOO LOW, SO DON'T WORRY, I'M OK!) but, I had to do some thinking, and asking myself where I'm heading in life and I've finally started getting myself back together. I've got a job now, and I've been able to make new friends! And you guys have kept me on my feet so many times. One good comment is all it takes for me to smile all day. And I've enjoyed seeing my regular commenters, and new commenters post reviews these last few years. Kind of feels like I've got a small club here, and I just want to give all 1,000 of you a big old hug, because you've helped me out so much. And I just want to say thanks. It's because of people like you that this story is here. This was a group effort, so pat yourself on the back, because you guys are just the best people ever! I'll be writing a special chapter to celebrate this event!
Here's to 100 more chapters! (I may have to start including other countries to call strange. Canada is part of North America, maybe I should start writing more chapters on them!)
(P.S.) I'm sorry I made Germany and America kind of jerks here, but eh, politics makes me grumpy.
(P.S.S.) Congratulations AshyPanda! You are my 1,000 subscriber!