Can Europeans avoid their content being ~~censored~~ filtered by using a VPN?
I suspect content hosting companies will let anyone upload anything but only make the content visible to people in countries that allow it. A VPN won't help. The directive isn't saying "An American uploaded this so it's fine for everyone to see." It's saying "The original version of this is owned by someone else so no one in the EU can watch this derivative work." Who uploaded it doesn't actually matter.
The website will be liable for the copyright infringement as if they would have uploaded the material themselves if they do not implement a good filter whatever that is.
It seems as though they would have a hard time doing this. If the website is based in America, they can't take it down. They probably can't extradite either; the rule is typically that it has to be illegal in both nations.
That's what I figured. The worst part about it is that it won't affect shady cyberlockers whose business models are rather suspect and often not known to tax authorities, but legitimate sites that do business in the EU will be impacted.
Internally operated content: Fines to the company distributing the content (e.g. Google operates in the EU and if YouTube was not found to be compliant they would be fined).
Externally operated content: Not really sure, the EU doesn't have a "great firewall".
Would a VPN help: Using a VPN to upload your video to YouTube as if you were Canadian will not change that YouTube cannot show illegal content in the EU. The question posed by the law isn't "who uploaded it" it's "what is in it". Using a VPN to view videos as if you were Canadian would naturally allow you to see things blocked in the EU.
It will circumvent the issue - with a chance of VPNs being banned in the future if this method becomes mainstream - but it won't change politics and will force the issue on everyone not savvy enough to find a way around it.
I suspect content hosting companies will let anyone upload anything but only make the content visible to people in countries that allow it. A VPN won't help. The directive isn't saying "An American uploaded this so it's fine for everyone to see." It's saying "The original version of this is owned by someone else so no one in the EU can watch this derivative work." Who uploaded it doesn't actually matter.