The European Union’s copyright law Article 13 could put a lot of YouTube creators out of business, according to a company blog post published on Monday.

YouTube Chief Executive Susan Wojcicki said in no uncertain terms that the directive means the “creator economy is under threat.” Article 13 asks that companies block the publication of user-generated content found to be infringing on copyrighted material.

“We have worked hard to ensure creators and artists are fairly compensated for their work,” said Wojcicki. “In the last year, YouTube paid content owners across the EU €800 million [$899 million]. We have also paid the global music industry more than €1.5 billion [$1.7 billion] from advert-generated revenue alone.”

She went on to say that asking YouTube to spot and block all copyrighted material is asking a little too much, given that about 400 hours of video content is uploaded to the platform every minute. She said that although YouTube supports the goals of the article, there could be “unintended consequences” that disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of creators.

“The parliament’s approach is unrealistic in many cases because copyright owners often disagree over who owns what rights,” she said. “If the owners cannot agree, it is impossible to expect the open platforms that host this content to make the correct rights decisions.”

She gives the example of the music video “Despacito,” which currently has more than 5.6 billion views. Wojcicki said the video contains many copyrights related to sound and publishing, and some of those rights are unknown. Such a video would have to be taken down lest YouTube face legal action. Given the enormity of YouTube, she said, the cull would be disastrous.

Moreover, Wojcicki said YouTube has had great success in addressing copyright infringement by employing technologies such as Content ID. That helps rights holders to manage their copyrights and get paid. So far that system has paid more than €2.5bn [$2.8 billion] to those rights holders.

“Platforms that follow these rules, and make a good effort to help rights holders identify their content, shouldn’t be held directly liable for every single piece of content that a user uploads,” Wojcicki said. She added that just last month, EU residents watched videos in total 90 billion times, and that content, which includes educational material, is at risk of being blocked.

The EU will take a final vote on whether the directive will go ahead in January.

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