An overhaul of copyright laws across the European Union is not only long overdue, it also offers a deep lesson for places such as Hong Kong. The most significant update in more than two decades, the new regulations approved by the European Parliament will hold social media platforms legally responsible for content uploaded by users. Its chief impact will be on copyright violations and their prevention. The responsibility now lies plainly with the powerful owners of platforms like YouTube, Google and Facebook.

Today, social media firms have become the dominant suppliers of news and other copyright materials such as music, especially for younger people. Their owners have reaped unimaginable profits and become some of the world’s biggest corporations. While exploiting creative materials produced by the more traditional content producers, the big tech firms have also contributed directly to their decline as advertising migrates to the dominant social media platforms. In the United States, Facebook and Google accounted for 60 per cent of online advertising revenue last year. Washington has lobbied fiercely against the changes in the EU. One obvious reason is that virtually all the big tech firms are American. But there are also fundamental legal and philosophical differences over regulation of the media.

By law since 1996 in the US, online platforms are not considered “publishers” of content produced by third parties. The crucial difference is that publishers, such as this newspaper, are legally responsible for the content they publish. Google and YouTube, however, are not. This US law arguably lies at the foundation of the profit-making model of such big tech firms. It also puts traditional media at a huge disadvantage.