This article was published on September 27, 2016

Mozilla trolls the EU’s nonsensical copyright laws with classic memes


The European Commission’s recently proposed digital copyright reforms [PDF] have not been well received on the tech scene, and the latest company to protest the EU’s nonsensical decision-making is Mozilla.

Deeming the proposed laws “outdated” and potentially harmful to people and businesses, The Firefox-maker has launched a new campaign to battle the suggested reforms – and it’s taking an interesting approach.

According to Mozilla, if accepted, the current proposal could in certain situations outlaw the taking and sharing of selfies in front of European landmarks. The reforms could also prohibit the use of memes and GIFs as the suggested changes do not “include needed exceptions for panorama, parody, or remixing.”

To expose the EU’s flawed logic, Mozilla has made a series of witty spoof videos that simultaneously inform and poke fun at the absurdity of the reforms proposed by the European Commission.

While CSI: GIF takes up the popular crime series CSI to show how ridiculous it is to treat the making and sharing of GIFs as illegal, Meme Jail mashes up some of the internet’s most popular memes to remind us how ubiquitous their use has become nowadays.

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Check out Mozilla’s clever videos below:

As part of the initiative, Mozilla has also launched the website Post Crimes, encouraging people to rebel the proposed reforms by taking a selfie in front of prohibited landmarks and sharing it with the world.

Sympathetic to Mozilla’s cause? You can sign the petition to protest the proposed reforms here.

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