Internet memes as derivative works: copyright issues under EU law

... ‘Did you know making a meme technically isn’t allowed in many parts of the EU? … Think that’s absurd? So do we. It’s time our laws caught up with our technology.’1 This is the very beginning of Mozilla’s changecopyright.org manifesto, where the well-known free-software community calls for copyright law reform. Interestingly, the first example concerns the widespread Internet memes phenomenon. But is Mozilla’s statement correct? This article aims to answer this question with respect to the EU law framework. US literature has already thoroughly engaged with this topic,2 but academics have only partially tackled Internet memes in Europe. Copyright infringement issues have been highlighted by literature for the purposes of focussing on the inadequacy of EU copyright legislation in respect of current technological advancements,3 but a sound analysis of what the phenomenon is in order to understand the basis of copyright law concerns—particularly from the point of view of meme-generating platforms—is still missing. Such approach is important since it shows that for every single Internet user practice,4 whether hyperlinking or making memes, a targeted analysis is pivotal to reach the right conclusion.