The current EU copyright directive was created in 2001, six years before the iPhone even existed, and the same year Microsoft launched Windows XP. It was also four years before YouTube.com launched, a site full of content uploaded by people who weren’t the original content creators. However, most of these scenarios were covered by the “fair use” doctrine in the U.S., without which a site such as YouTube may have never been allowed to exist.

This is precisely the problem with current copyright laws in the European Union. In many of its member countries, there is no concept of “fair use,” so much of the online content there could technically be considered illegal.