The European Parliament has finally done it: approved controversial copyright reforms that could have significant repercussions for the internet in Europe.

The set of copyright rules known as the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market — the EU Copyright Directive — has been the subject of debate for several years.

While it is uncontroversial in many regards, two facets of the directive have caused the internet to freak out. Article 11, which has been dubbed the “link tax,” stipulates that websites pay publishers a fee if they display excerpts of copyrighted content — or even link to it. This obviously could have major ramifications for services such as Google News. Then there is Article 13, dubbed the “upload filter,” which would effectively make digital platforms legally liable for any copyright infringements on their platform and has stoked fears that it would stop people from sharing content — such as GIF-infused memes — on social networks.

In July of last year, the European Parliament actually voted 318-278 against these copyright reforms, but only in their existing form. In September, the EU parliament voted to pass the directive, with some minor adjustments made, but this was what it refers to as a negotiating position. It then proceeded through a “trilogue” process involving further negotiations between the EU Council and the Commission. This brings us to today, and the EU Parliament overwhelming 348 to 274 vote in favor of the new directive.

Needless to say, this development impacts two broad groups: the platforms, such as Google and Facebook, and content creators, which range from newspapers to musicians. Naturally, it is the latter of these groups that will be most happy about the vote — they have been campaigning to force platforms to accept responsibility for copyright-infringing content that is uploaded to services such as YouTube.

“This is about creating a fair and functioning market for creative works of all kinds on the internet,” said Robert Ashcroft, CEO of U.K.-based royalties collection body PRS for Music, in the wake of today’s vote. “It’s about making sure that ordinary people can upload videos and music to platforms like YouTube without being held liable for copyright — that responsibility will henceforth be transferred to the platforms. This is about modernizing the internet, and it’s a massive step forward for consumers and creators alike.”

Google, which has had a rough time in Europe in recent years, closed its Google News product in Spain five years ago after a local law was introduced requiring aggregators (such as Google) to pay publishers just for linking to their content. Now that a similar law is set to be rolled out across the entire European Union, services such as Google News could start to disappear in the region, and there are question marks over YouTube’s position as a platform that allows anyone to upload content.

For now, though, Google — which lobbied heavily against these changes — hasn’t stated what it will do, though it did refer to the “legal uncertainty” the ruling may cause.

“The Copyright Directive is improved, but will still lead to legal uncertainty and will hurt Europe’s creative and digital economies,” a spokesperson said. “The details matter, and we look forward to working with policy makers, publishers, creators and rights holders as EU member states move to implement these new rules.”

In terms of what happens next, well, there isn’t a great deal that can stop this directive from being rolled out in the coming years — each EU country will have to write the directive into their own national laws, with a deadline set for 2021. Some countries may transpose the directive more quickly than others, depending on the degree of fervor with which each country agrees with the new rules.

We could still see some legal action challenging the ruling, though it’s not entirely clear on what grounds or who would initiate it. “Unlike the GDPR, which gave existing regulatory bodies the clear power to adjudicate and enforce that law and its ambiguities, it’s unclear who is supposed to impose consistency in the EU between, say, a harsh French regime and a potentially softer German solution, or interpret the Directive’s notoriously ,” added Danny O’Brien, international director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a statement.

“That means it will fall by default to Europe’s judicial system, and the long, slow road to a final decision by the EU’s superior court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ),” he said.

In short, we’ve probably reached the end of the road in terms of blocking these new copyright reforms, but anyone who opposes the new legislation can take hope in knowing there will be room for some twists and turns in the next couple of years. That may not be enough to reverse the directive, but determining what the reform actually means for internet platforms and copyright holders will likely take many debates — and days in court. </s> A controversial directive introducing sweeping changes to copyright enforcement across Europe has been approved by the European parliament, despite ferocious campaigning led by Google and internet freedom activists.

The European copyright directive, voted in by 348 MEPs to 274 against, is best known for two provisions it contains: articles 11 and 13, referred to as the “link tax” and “upload filter”, respectively, by opponents. (Confusingly, a last-minute redraft means that the actual clauses are now articles 15 and 17, even as the older names have stuck)

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The latter has been the main focus of campaigning. It requires websites that host user-generated content to take active measures to prevent copyrighted material from being uploaded without permission, under the penalty of being held liable for their users’ copyright infringement.

Article 11, the “link tax”, includes new requirements aimed at making companies like Google pay licensing fees to publications such as newspapers whose work gets aggregated in services like Google News.

Supporters say it prevents multinational companies from freeloading on the work of others without paying for it, but critics argue that it effectively imposes a requirement for paying a fee to link to a website.

Publishers and artists have pushed for the clauses, arguing that they would put an end to widespread infringement on sites such as YouTube and Instagram, while companies including Google and Amazon have attacked the measure as unworkable in practice, and overbearing to the extent that it may force them to close services in Europe.

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Article 13 has taken on a particular infamy thanks to the ways those companies have mobilised their user base on popular social sites such as Google’s YouTube and Amazon’s Twitch. Popular YouTubers including Philip DeFranco and FBE have run videos attacking the directive, as have Twitch streamers. The Amazon subsidiary even put together a livestream featuring European legislators playing Mario Kart as they talked about the harm the legislation could do.

The campaigning reached such a level that many younger social media users ended up believing the internet would be deleted in Europe the day the legislation passed, posting heartfelt messages on Instagram wishing goodbye to their online friends.

In a statement, a Google spokesperson told the Guardian: “The EU copyright directive is improved but will still lead to legal uncertainty and will hurt Europe’s creative and digital economies. The details matter, and we look forward to working with policymakers, publishers, creators and rights holders as EU member states move to implement these new rules.”

Catherine Stihler, the chief executive of the Open Knowledge International, a not-for-profit organisation which pushes for open data, said the vote was “a massive blow for every internet user in Europe. MEPs have rejected pleas from millions of EU citizens to save the internet, and chose instead to restrict freedom of speech and expression online. We now risk the creation of a more closed society at the very time we should be using digital advances to build a more open world where knowledge creates power for the many, not the few.”

But legal experts argue that the directive is hard to read as requiring the sort of drastic action that technology firms fear. Kathy Berry, senior lawyer at Linklaters, says that “while article 13 may have noble aims, in its current form it functions as little more than a set of ideals, with very little guidance on exactly which service providers will be caught by it or what steps will be sufficient to comply.”

More generally, Berry says, there are several further steps before article 13 becomes law. “It also needs to be approved by the European council. The council’s vote is scheduled for 8 or 15 April. Assuming it passes that stage, the directive will be signed by council and parliament before being published in the EU’s Official Journal, and will enter into force 20 days after that.” Even then, EU member states have a further two years to implement the directive into their own laws, which may mean that the UK is no longer in the EU at that point.

“However, UK businesses providing their services in the EU will still have to comply.” </s> You may soon see fewer memes online, especially if you live in the European Union. Tuesday, the European Parliament passed a directive to overhaul copyright law in the European Union and put more pressure on the likes of Google, Facebook, and Instagram to keep copyrighted material like photos and videos off their platforms. Now it's up to each member country to write laws based on the directive.

The laws will apply only in the EU, but it's possible that companies will try to comply with the directive globally, just as some companies, including Microsoft, say they are applying the EU privacy regulations outside of Europe.

The most controversial part of the copyright directive makes platforms like Google and Facebook responsible for copyright violations in material posted by their users. Previously, users, not the platforms, were liable. A copy of the directive published by European Parliament member Julia Reda, a member of the Pirate Party Germany who opposes the legislation, says companies will need to follow "industry best practices" for preventing the upload of copyrighted materials. The directive is meant to only cover content-sharing sites. Changes to an earlier version of the proposal last year exempt smaller companies, business-to-business cloud services, open source code-hosting platforms, and not-for-profit online encyclopedias.

The directive will also require sites to pay publishers a licensing fee for displaying excerpts from news stories, with the exception of "individual words or very short extracts." It doesn't define how long a "very short extract" can be. This has been described as a “link tax” though hyperlinking is explicitly excluded from the rule. The words used in a link, however, would presumably be covered.

Critics say the new rules will effectively force companies to install "upload filters" that screen out copyrighted content. The directive doesn't explicitly require companies to adopt automatic filtering technology, but critics argue that its language amounts to a de facto requirement for filters. YouTube already does this by allowing record companies and other copyright holders to upload content that the company checks to decide whether to block content or provide licensing fees to the copyright holder. The concern is that other companies will have to apply similar techniques to all sorts of content, including text and still images. Critics fear that legitimate content, including satire, which is exempted from the directive, would be blocked because the filters would be unable to distinguish between a copyrighted photo used for satire and one that is infringing. YouTube's filtering system, which Google claimed last year to have spent $100 million developing, has a history of accidentally blocking non-infringing content. Copyright holders also have used dubious claims to have content taken off the site.

"In a misguided effort to re-balance the online ecosystem, the European Union has plunged the Open Internet into uncertainty," Gus Rossi, global policy director of the advocacy group Public Knowledge, said in a statement. "No one knows exactly how to comply with the Directive. The problem is compounded by the fact that 27 member states will have different national implementations of the same European law, each likely favoring their own national interests and industries."

A Google spokesperson said in a statement that the version approved by Parliament Tuesday was “improved but will still lead to legal uncertainty and will hurt Europe’s creative and digital economies." The company said it would work with policy makers, publishers, creators and rights holders as EU countries implement the rules.

Last year, the directive’s sponsor, European Parliament member Axel Voss of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, told WIRED that even if the legislation wasn’t perfect, it would make it harder for big tech companies to profit from ads alongside material that infringes on others’ copyrights.

The publishing industry, which lobbied for the directive, celebrated the decision. “This is a vote against content theft,” Xavier Bouckaert, president of the European Magazine Media Association, said in a statement. “Publishers of all sizes and other creators will now have the right to set terms and conditions for others to re-use their content commercially, as is only fair and appropriate.”

The directive follows several other attempts by European governments to bring US technology giants to heel. In recent years the EU has passed sweeping data privacy regulations, imposed steep antitrust fines on Google, and ordered Apple to pay $14.5 billion in back taxes. Those rules may have extracted money from the tech giants, but didn't necessarily put money in the pockets of EU companies. Through its licensing requirements, the copyright directive tries to do just that.
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European Parliament lawmakers on Thursday rejected a highly controversial European Union copyright law proposal that has pitted Beatles legend Paul McCartney against the creators of Wikipedia.

Members of the European Parliament, meeting in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, voted 318 against the measure, 278 in favour, with 31 abstentions. The draft law was firmly resisted by major U.S. tech giants as well as advocates of Internet freedom.

Resistance has been especially heated to Article 13: the proposal to make online platforms legally liable for copyrighted material put on the web by users.

Music legend McCartney as well as major music labels and film studios have lobbied politicians urging them to back the changes.

But critics warn the reform will lead to blanket censorship by tech platforms that have become an online hub for creativity, especially Youtube. It would also restrict the usage of memes and remixes by everyday Internet surfers, they say.

Wikipedia went down in at least three countries on Wednesday in protest aagainst the European Parliament vote.

"The directive will threaten online freedom and would impose new filters, barriers and restrictions to access the web," Wikipedia Spain said in a statement.

The second disputed aspects to the proposed reform are an effort to boost revenue for hard-up news publishers and a crackdown on non-copyrighted material on tech platforms such as Google-owned Youtube or Facebook.

Major publishers, including AFP, have pushed for the news media reform — known as article 11 — seeing it as an urgently needed solution against a backdrop of free online news that has decimated the earnings of traditional media companies.

But U.S. tech giants and Internet freedom activists are against the idea, calling it a "link tax" that will stifle discourse on the Internet.

They also argue it will only benefit well-known news providers to the detriment of independent and start-up news companies.

Thursday's parliament vote is not final, but only sets out the negotiating position of the Members of the European Parliament.

There then follow negotiations with member-states for a finalised law, which Austria, holder of the EU's six-month rotating presidency, would like finished by the end of the year. </s> The European Parliament on Tuesday approved a controversial EU copyright overhaul that hands more power to news publishers and record companies against internet giants like Google and Facebook.

Despite an intense debate in parliament and furious lobbying ahead of the vote, MEPs meeting in Strasbourg ended up passing the draft law with 348 votes in favour, 274 against, and 36 abstentions.

The debate brings to an end three years of impassioned debate which has pitted the internet giants against creative writers and artists who want to see better protection of their rights and income.

The most controversial section would require companies such as YouTube and Facebook to take responsibility for copyrighted material that's uploaded to their platforms.

Opponents claim they could restrict freedom of speech, hamper online creativity and force websites to install filters.

Over the weekend, tens of thousands of people marched in cities across Germany to protest the planned copyright reforms that they fear will lead to online censorship.

European lawmakers were sharply divided on the copyright issue, with both sides subjected to some of the most intense lobbying the EU has ever seen from tech giants, media firms, content creators and online freedom activists. </s> The European parliament rejected on Thursday a draft of reforms which aimed at modernizing and strengthening copyright rules in the digital age. The reforms were pushed by European film and TV guilds, as well as artists such as Paul McCartney and press publishers.

The Parliament’s decision to reject reforms proposed by the Legal Affairs Committee marks a victory for global giants such as Netflix, Google, Facebook and Amazon which would have faced several changes and restrictions if the draft had been approved.

EDiMA, the European trade association representing online platforms, reacted to the decision saying that “democracy has succeeded.” The org previously argued the reforms would have resulted “in the censorship of free speech online and a disintegration of the Internet as we know it.”

Out of the 627 deputies who participated in the vote, 318 of them voted against and 278 were in favor of the reforms. There were 31 abstentions.

The last E.U. copyright reform dates back to 2001, before the start of the digital revolution, and those who are lobbying for the reform are arguing that web giants must be held accountable for the content they feature in order to create a fairer marketplace and fight against piracy.

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Earlier this year, more than 1,300 recording artists including Paul McCartney, James Blunt and opera star Placido Domingo signed an open letter to the European Parliament to support the reform.

But two articles (the 11th and 13th) in the draft sparked criticism among many deputies. The 11th article called for content aggregators such as Google News to pay a fee to press publishers, while the 13th article required web platforms such as Facebook to flag copyright-protected content from being illegally posted online.

The Legal Affairs Committee will have to come up with a new draft to be examined by the European Parliament during the next plenary session in September.

Reacting to today’s vote, Axel Voss, the rapporteur for the copyright directive, said he regretted that “a majority of MEPs (members of the European Parliament) did not support the position which (he) and the Legal Affairs Committee have been advocating.”

“But this is part of the democratic process. We will now return to the matter in September for further consideration and attempt to address peoples’ concerns whilst bringing our copyright rules up to date with the modern digital environment,” added Voss. </s> MEPs have voted to reject a proposed overhaul of EU copyright law which had received the support of high-profile musicians and the creative industries, and condemnation from large online technology companies.

The European Parliament voted 318 to 278 against a committee proposal known as the EU Copyright Directive, in its current form, with 31 MEPs abstaining.

The draft law is intended as a simple update to copyright for the internet age but came in for substantial criticism for the inclusion of two key provisions: Articles 11 and 13.

The draft law, known as the Copyright Directive, was intended as a simple update to copyright for the internet age. But it attracted substantial criticism for the inclusion of two key provisions: Articles 11 and 13.

The first, Article 11, was a âlink taxâ that would force online platforms like Facebook and Google to pay news organizations before linking to their stories.

The second, Article 13, proposed an âupload filterâ that would have required all content uploaded online to be checked for copyright infringement.

The proposed law has divided the European parliament with Irish MEPs holding differing views.

A tweet that was retweeted by FG MEP, Mairead McGuinness, prior to the vote

Article 13 was probably the most high profile element of the new law and proposed a new legal framework to govern how large online services pay songwriters and performers for the use of their work.

It suggested websites could continue to house music videos but must use technology to ensure copyrighted works are not available where a licence has not been agreed for its use.

Artists including Paul McCartney and opera signer Placido Domingo signing an open letter calling for politicians to back the change ahead of the vote.

McCartney wrote in his own letter he believed the changes would have assured a sustainable future for the music industry by encouraging online upload platforms to pay songwriters and performers fairly for use of their work.

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and Brit Awards, said: “We respect the decision by MEPs to have a plenary discussion on the draft Copyright Directive.

“We will work with MEPs over the next weeks to explain how the proposed directive will benefit not just European creativity, but also internet users and the technology sector.”

The European Parliament will return to the issue in September, where its position will be up for debate, amendment and another vote in the next plenary session.

Reacting to the result of Thursday’s vote Robert Ashcroft, chief executive of recording artists’ royalties collector PRS for Music, said: “It is perhaps unsurprising considering the unprecedented level of lobbying and the comprehensive campaign of misinformation which has accompanied this vote that MEPs want more time to consider the proposals.

“The vote showed that many MEPs across the various European political parties understand the importance of fixing the transfer of value and of a well-functioning market for copyright.

“We appreciate their support and hope that as we move forward to the Plenary debate in September, more MEPs will recognise the unique opportunity to secure the EU’s creative industries.”

Sir Paul McCartney had signed an open letter that called on MEPs to give the music industry a ‘sustainable’ future (Steve Parsons/PA)

Technology leaders including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and free speech campaigners had been opposed to the changes, saying they risked creative sharing of content online including remixes and memes.

The executive director of the Open Rights Group Jim Killock welcomed the decision. He said: “Round one of the Robo-Copyright wars is over.

“The EU Parliament has recognised that machine censorship of copyright material is not an easy and simple fix.

“They’ve heard the massive opposition, including Internet blackouts and 750,000 people petitioning them against these proposals.

“Everyone across Europe who wants this fixed will have to work hard to make sure that Parliament comes up with a sensible way forward by September.”

The Press Association has contacted Google, the owner of video sharing site YouTube, for comment. </s> The European Parliament has given its final approval to the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. This dreaded and controversial legislative package is designed to update Europe's copyright laws for the Internet age.

Members of Parliament voted with the following results: 348 in favor and 274 against. There was a last-minute proposal to remove the most controversial clause in the directive: Article 13, also known as the upload filter. However, this proposal was rejected by only 5 votes. The directive will now be sent to the member states of the European Union, which will have 24 months to integrate it as part of their own national legislation.

The Copyright Directive has been in the making for more than two years, and has been the subject of fierce controversy, involving technology giants, copyright owners and digital rights activists.

Julia Reda, an MEP from the German Pirate Party who had shown great resistance to the directive, said it was "a very dark day for freedom on the net". On the other hand, Andrus Ansip, Vice-President of the European Commission and a great supporter of the project, said that "a big step forward" has been taken in the task of unifying the European digital market and protecting "online creativity".
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There are details that will have to be decided by the respective EU member states, but the most certain is that this new legislation will have a gigantic impact on the functioning of the network in Europe and beyond. As an example, as we have already seen with the GDPR, European law can influence US policies.

Proponents of the directive say it will serve to balance forces between North American technology giants and European content creators by giving copyright owners the option to decide how the network's various platforms will distribute their content. However, critics argue that the law is imprecise and lacks proper planning, so it could end up becoming a restriction on content distribution, slowing innovation and hampering the right to free expression.

The new rules: the "link tax" and the "upload filter".

Despite their resistance, the most controversial clauses of the new directive remain intact. The clauses in question are Article 11, also known as the "link tax", and Article 13, also known as the "upstream filter".

Article 11 allows publishers to charge platforms such as Google News if they show parts of their new content. Article 13 (renamed Article 17 in the most recent version of the Directive) imposes new tasks on platforms such as YouTube to prevent users from uploading material protected by copyright law.

In both cases, critical voices claim that these well-intentioned laws will create problems. For example: Article 13 could lead to the introduction of "upload filters" that will read all user content before they are online, to remove all copyright-protected elements. The law does not expressly mention such filters, but their appearance would be inevitable if the upload platforms do not want to be exposed to fines and other penalties.

While the advocates of the Directive reduce the fiercest criticisms of Article 13 to mere exaggerations, the experts assume that the filters to be used could present errors or be ineffective. In addition, given the high cost of implementing the necessary technologies, the new legislation could have a diametrically opposite effect to that planned: accidentally entrenching the dominance of big tech in digital space.

What is certain is that the effect that the new directive will have is very difficult to predict. The law focuses especially on services such as Google Search and Google News, which display snippets or summaries of content. Google, for its part, has stated that if the media charge licenses for its material, it will have to remove that content from the search results and ultimately close Google News.

Critics accuse Google of using fear as a weapon, circulating screenshots like the one below. But the fact is that the Copyright Directive has provoked resistance from many parts of the population: in recent weeks, more than 100 000 people have protested against its approval, and more than 5 million have signed a petition demanding the removal of Article 13. Recently, pages like Reddit, Wikipedia and PornHub have closed to protest against the legislation.

It remains to be seen how policy is developed based on the implementation of these new laws. What do you think? Are we facing the end of the net as we know it? Are we going to have to record every single thing we want to upload? Will it be the end of social networks and meme-sharing? </s> The European Parliament voted Thursday against a the current form of a copyright reform proposal which has come under fire in recent weeks for sections which critics say would unfairly stifle the sharing of content on the internet.

The stated goals of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market 2016/0280(COD), as it is officially known, are to harmonize copyright protection across the EU and give additional protections to content creators and rightsholders.

However, opponents of the directive – which include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Wikimedia Foundation, Google, World Wide Web founder Tim Berners-Lee, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and hundreds of academics, scientists, and journalists – have warned that it would have disastrous effects for culture and information sharing in Europe and beyond.

The most controversial aspects of the proposal are:

Article 11: This would force, for example, anyone wishing to even share this article’s headline “EU Parliament votes against controversial copyright reform” on social media to obtain permission from The Krakow Post first.

Article 13: This would hold most content sharing platforms responsible for licensing (or, failing that, blocking) any copyright-protected material. While nominally designed to prevent piracy, critics fear that, by virtue of the facts that this would apply to all automatically copyrighted (like any photo, video, or text created by anyone) and that it would hold platforms like social media companies (rather than individuals) responsible for violations, it would effectively force most sites that allow users to share content to implement automatic stringent content filters on everything that is uploaded there. This is often described by opponents as a death sentence for internet memes, which by their nature are usually derived from images created by others, but it would affect many other types of content as well.

Supporters of the directive – mostly music publishers along with other creative rightsholders and their representatives – accuse the opposition of exaggerating and fear-mongering. They argue that the rules would be reasonably applied in the limited interests of maintaining legitimate and willful copyright violations, and that sufficient exceptions have been added to prevent the contingencies opponents warn of.

In the end, the vote failed 278-318, with 31 abstentions. Poland MEPs were remarkable in having zero “yes” votes, a distinction they shared only with Sweden.

It should be noted, however, that this is not the end of the matter. This simply opens the proposal to further changes and negotiations before a (probably revised) version is voted on in mid-September.

If you would like to learn more, German Pirate Party member Julia Reda has a good summary of the opposition views (along with arguments for why the exceptions which purport to relax the law would be ineffective). For an argument from the other side, you can read the open letter signed by Paul McCartney, James Blunt, and more than 1,300 other recording artists who support the directive. Finally, if you want to contact your MEP, you can find more information here.
The European Parliament approves two revisions to the controversial Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. One resolution includes new requirements aimed at making companies pay licensing fees to publications such as newspapers whose work gets aggregated by online services. The second revision makes online platforms such as Google, Facebook and YouTube liable for the content posted on their services, meaning that all content providers must get permission from rights holders before uploading copyrighted material of any kind.