I can produce a copy of the contract I have with my employer that specifies my wages and other terms of my employment. If you believe I have a contract with some "content creator" then produce the contract, and show me where my signature was applied.

I am not claiming that the EU legislation is "wrong," I just want people to stop pretending that it is motivated by some high-minded ideal or that it addresses a fundamentally important issue for society. It is nothing more than a regulation imposed on one industry for the benefit of another industry. Copyright has always been about business interests, and the notion that a poor author somewhere is the real beneficiary of copyright is just a nice story publishers have told people since they started lobbying for the Statute of Anne.