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>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>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 on Tuesday voted in favor of a controversial new law that will bring sweeping reforms to how copyrighted content posted online is governed. The legislation was adopted with 348 votes in favor and 274 against.

For proponents of digital rights, the decision comes as a huge blow after over a year of campaigning to uphold what they see as the integrity of the internet. Member of the European Parliament Julia Reda, one of the most vocal critics of the directive, said on Twitter that the vote signals a "dark day for internet freedom."

Years in the making, the EU Copyright Directive has been heavily debated and divisive among politicians, as well as a cause of concern for the tech industry. One part of the proposal in particular -- Article 13, which will govern the way copyrighted content is uploaded to the internet -- has many in the tech community throwing their hands up in despair.

Under the law, internet platforms will be liable for content that users upload, a burden that will fall heavily on some of the most popular online services.

"YouTube, Facebook and Google News are some of the internet household names that will be most directly affected by this legislation," the European Parliament said in a statement.

The effects of the law may be felt well beyond Europe's borders, given the global nature of the internet and the need for tech companies to come up with policies that can be broadly applied. That's what happened after the EU enacted the privacy-focused General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, in May 2018.

Critics said legislators had turned a deaf ear to a wide range of experts and to the general population.



"In a stunning rejection of the will [of] five million online petitioners, and over 100,000 protestors this weekend, the European Parliament has abandoned common-sense and the advice of academics, technologists, and UN human rights experts, and approved the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive in its entirety," said rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a blog post.

Before the text can be adopted in European law, it must next be approved by the Council of the European Union. It's still possible that the directive may not be passed by the Council, but that would involve at least one key country changing its mind. A vote is expected to take place April 9.

After EU member states themselves accept the text of the directive, it will take effect after publication in the official journal and member states will have two years to implement it.

A second section of the directive, Article 11, says search engines and news aggregators will be charged to display snippets of news they're linking to (known as a link tax). That will be another source of frustration for tech companies.

Back in January, Google said it may have to pull its news service from Europe entirely if the directive passes in its current state. Screenshots captured by Search Engine Land showed how Google news results could appear in Europe if Google doesn't pay the tax. (Spoiler alert: They're just a bunch of empty boxes.) Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment following the outcome of the vote.

The European Parliament says that the directive is meant to ensure that longstanding rights and obligations of copyright law also apply to the internet. Article 13 dictates that anyone sharing copyrighted content must get permission from rights owners -- or at least have made the best possible effort to get permission -- before doing so.

"This directive is an important step towards correcting a situation which has allowed a few companies to earn huge sums of money without properly remunerating the thousands of creatives and journalists whose work they depend on," Axel Voss, the European Parliament rapporteur, said in a statement.

In order to enforce this, internet platforms will likely have to use upload filters to evaluate anything they put online. Even the wealthiest online services such as Facebook and YouTube, which have spent years developing this technology, haven't been able to prove pre-moderation of content is a foolproof method for preventing content from surfacing online that shouldn't be there.

Ahead of the vote on Tuesday, EU Commissioner for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip pointed out that nothing in the text of the legislation stipulates the use of upload filters. But it's hard to imagine a way in which tech platforms and social networks could otherwise realistically comply with the rules.

But the copyright directive also stopped short of some of the restrictions many had feared. It will, for instance, allow uploading of material to noncommercial sites such as Wikipedia and to open-source platforms including GitHub. Startup platforms also will face light obligations than more established ones, which may soften the blow for those worried that only the biggest and wealthiest may be able to afford to comply with the legislation.

And the wacky, creative side of the internet got a reprieve.

"We listened to the concerns raised and chose to doubly guarantee the freedom of expression," Voss said. "The 'meme', the 'gif', the 'snippet' are now protected more than ever before."</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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• 📩 Get even more of our inside scoops with our weekly Backchannel newsletter</s>European Union lawmakers approved a copyright directive Tuesday intended to give writers and artists more protection of their creative rights and incomes. But outspoken critics say the contentious measure could have major implications for US tech companies and could censor anyone who posts on the Internet.

The European Parliament voted 348-274 to pass the online copyright bill, with 36 abstentions. Opponents argued the legislation, which had been in the works for three years, would stifle freedom and creativity online. The EU's member countries gave the measure preliminary approval in February and have final reviews set for next month.

The directive largely updates existing copyright law. If enacted, companies such as Apple, Facebook, and Google parent company Alphabet likely would have to pay European artists more and do more to keep work that appears online from being used without permission.

But two sections of the legislation have become particularly controversial — one because it would make companies responsible for proactively filtering out copyrighted material that is uploaded to their online platforms. The other concerns how information from news organisations is linked and quoted.

"Web giants have been able to benefit from content created in Europe by paying derisory taxes, transferring huge profits to the US or China," European Parliament President Antonio Tajani said. "Parliament has chosen to put an end to the existing digital Wild West."

Lobbying against the bill by Internet giants was said to be so intense that even after EU members gave their provisional support, passage wasn't viewed as a sure thing Tuesday. More than 5 million people signed an online petition trying to prevent the directive from passing, saying the measures would unfairly censor posts online.

The directive would put the legal onus on companies to ensure that copyrighted material was not being uploaded to their sites — including through user posts on sites like Facebook and YouTube, said Gus Rossi, global policy director at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit that advocates for an open Internet.

Companies are not required to, but would likely have to monitor for that by using artificial intelligence systems that are taught to recognise known copyrighted materials, he said.

Advocates are concerned that such filters have two problems. Only the largest companies like Google and Facebook could afford to build and maintain them, pricing out smaller firms. And even when built, these systems almost certainly won't be completely accurate, meaning some materials that should be allowed online will be caught and deleted.

"The average consumer is not an expert in copyright law," Rossi said. "Most likely, most consumers won't pursue recourse. That will create a chilling effect in most situations."

Supporters of the directive say it will protect creators' rights to get paid for their work.

German EU lawmaker Axel Voss, who was the bill's lead backer, let out a massive sigh when the vote tally flashed up on a screen inside the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, France.

"We have agreed a new set of rules which will do exactly the opposite of killing the Internet," Voss said.

After the vote, Google said in a statement that the bill "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 policy makers, publishers, creators and rights holders as EU member states move to implement these new rules."

The company has spoken out against pieces of the directive over the past year, saying it is overbroad and could cause the removal of posts and YouTube videos when it's unclear who holds which rights.

EDiMa, an association of European tech companies, said in a statement that the version approved Tuesday improved on earlier drafts, but "we still fundamentally disagree with it, as it undermines other EU law, tries to force a licensing business model on open platforms, and weakens the fundamental privacy and freedom of speech rights of EU citizens."

Tens of thousands of people marched in cities across Germany over the weekend to protest what the EU sees as reforms and what critics see as restrictions that could lead to online censorship.

Outside parliament, a French band performed music to push the point that artists need higher payments and better copyright protection.

"There is nothing like free lunch, and I don't know why the giant techs should carry on, you know, having a free lunch on our expense," French music producer Wally Badarou said.

In France, ever the guardian of European culture, the government greeted the bill's passage with relief.

"The EU message is clear," French Culture Minister Franck Riester said. "Everyone intervening on the European market must respect our common preferences, whether it is copyright or fiscal rules" that require America's tech companies to pay more taxes in Europe.

The leader of the EU parliament's liberal ALDE group, Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium, countered the bill's critics by saying the cards had been stacked so much in favor of "monopolistic American companies" that it was ridiculous to talk about a free Internet.

"The only freedom you have is to send your data mainly to US companies who are using it for their profit. That is all," Verhofstadt said during Tuesday's session.

But open Internet advocates in the US stress that the directive could stifle traffic to news organisations and censor people's posts online.

Filtering systems to catch copyright issues often give crude matches, said Cory Doctorow, a bestselling novelist and special consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. A filter could catch, for instance, a new photographer's timely photo and delete it because in the background it shows a bus ad with a copyrighted image.

"They can probably make tuna nets that catch all the tuna, provided you don't care how many dolphins they catch at the same time," he said.

The directive would need to be implemented by all EU member states into their own national laws, leaving room for separate interpretations.</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>STRASBOURG, FRANCE (AFP) - The European Parliament on Tuesday (March 26) adopted controversial copyright reforms championed by news publishers and the media business, but punishing tech giants that lobbied against it.

Despite an intense debate in Parliament, MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) meeting in Strasbourg ended up passing the draft law with 348 votes in favour, 274 against, and 36 abstentions.

European lawmakers were sharply divided on the copyright issue, with both sides subjected to some of the most intense lobbying the European Union (EU) has ever seen from tech giants, media firms, content creators and online freedom activists.

Launched in 2016, the revamp to European copyright legislation was seen as urgently needed, not having been updated since 2001, before the birth of YouTube or Facebook.

The reform was loudly backed by media companies and artists, who want to obtain a better return from web platforms that allow users to distribute their content.

But it was strongly opposed by Silicon Valley, and especially Google that makes huge profits from the advertising generated on content it hosts, and also by supporters of a free internet who fear it will result in unprecedented restrictions to web freedom.

The final days before the vote were marked by marches and media stunts, including tens of thousands of people protesting in Germany on Saturday under the slogan "Save the Internet".

There were similar protests in Austria, Poland and Portugal, while major Polish newspapers on Monday printed blank front pages in an appeal that MEPs adopt the reform.

"I know there are lots of fears about what users can do or not - now we have clear guarantees for freedom of speech, teaching and online creativity," Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip said after the vote.

Germany was at the heart of the anti-reform movement, led by Julia Reda, a 32-year-old Pirate Party MEP who has spearheaded a campaign against two of the law's provisions that have become flashpoints in the debate.

Reda said the vote marked a "dark day for internet freedom" and decried that MEPs refused, albeit narrowly, to modify the text before the final vote.

Reda's main worry was Article 13, which aims to strengthen the bargaining power of rights holders with platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Soundcloud, which use their content.

Under the reform, European law for the first time would hold platforms legally responsible for enforcing copyright, requiring them to check everything that their users post to prevent infringement.

Reda and her supporters warned that Article 13 would require platforms to install expensive content filters that would automatically and often erroneously delete content from the web.

Backers of the law, led by its rapporteur MEP Axel Voss, answered that filters are not a requirement, but they do not explain how companies can comply with Article 13 without them.

The second article advocated the creation of a "neighbouring right" to copyright for news media.

It should enable news companies to be better paid when their output is used by information aggregators like Google News or social networks such as Facebook.

Major publishers including AFP have pushed hard for the reform, seeing it as an urgent remedy to safeguard quality journalism and the plummeting earnings of traditional media companies.

The reform, if properly implemented by member states "can help to maintain journalism in the field, which all evidence shows is still the best way to combat misinformation", said AFP CEO Fabrice Fries.

But opponents have called it a "link tax" that will stifle discourse on the internet and pay only big media companies, with no real benefits for journalists or news gatherers.

The reform is staunchly backed by France and several other member states, but some countries may decide to use the flexibility built into the reform that allows a loose interpretation of the rules.

A Google spokesman said the two-decade old law "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 policy makers, publishers, creators and rights holders as EU member states move to implement these new rules."</s>The European Parliament, an ongoing source of heartburn for Internet companies, just passed a law making them legally liable for copyright infringement by content users upload on their platforms. Legislation like it, called SOPA/PIPA , was proposed and defeated in the U.S. in 2012.

The dramatic move pit artists against web platforms. Called the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, it seeks to apply “the rights and obligations of copyright law” to the internet, lawmakers said in a statement after voting 348 to 287 in favor. YouTube, Facebook and Google News are some of the internet household names that will be most directly affected.

The directive enhances the ability of rights holders — musicians, performers, writers and publishers — to negotiate better deals for the use of their works online. “It does this by making internet platforms directly liable for content uploaded to their site and by automatically giving the right to news publishers to negotiate deals on behalf of its journalists for news stories used by news aggregators,” the European Parliament said.

Thousand of artists had signed a petition backing the directive led by film producers like Pedro Almodovar and Michel Hazanavicius, Amba’s Benny Andersson, author Ali Smith, and independent music labels.

Passage infuriated proponents of the open Internet, who argue that copyright restrictions will chill free speech. Internet companies and trade groups lobbied furiously and a band of 200 European academics signed a petition against it. Protesters in Germany, Sweden, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, and Portugal also took to the streets to campaign against the restrictions, which still need approval by individual EU member nations.

The debate is an echo of a battle Stateside over legislation called the Stop Online Piracy Act (in the House) and Protect IP Act (in the Senate) that initially had widespread support in Congress but folded under a massive lobbying and PR blitz by the Internet industry. Major websites went dark on a coordinated day of protest and Congressional servers were overwhelmed by angry consumer emails. The copyright issue has not been raised again since and U.S. creatives operate on a “notice and takedown” regime, where platforms remove infringing content after being advised it’s there. That requires a level of constant policing that can be hard, especially for smaller independent producers.

Opponents fear sites will over-block or self-censor to avoid litigation and that smaller sites that can’t afford to filter content won’t have a fighting chance.

“In a stunning rejection of the will of five million online petitioners, and over 100,000 protestors this weekend, the European Parliament has abandoned common-sense and the advice of academics, technologists, and UN human rights experts, and approved the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive in its entirety,”’ wrote the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The directive was introduced in 2016 and watered down from previous iterations. It makes platforms liable for content users upload, with exceptions for some material like GIFs. It mandates that journalists get a share of copyright-related revenue obtained by their news publisher. Start-up platforms are subject to lighter obligations.

In a Twitter post, Google Europe said the directive would “lead to legal uncertainty and will hurt Europe’s creative and digital economies.”

Axel Voss, the European lawmaker behind the directive, called the law “an important step towards correcting a situation which has allowed a few companies to earn huge sums of money without properly remunerating the thousands of creatives and journalists whose work they depend on.”

"This is a directive which protects people's living, safeguards democracy by defending a diverse media landscape, entrenches freedom of expression, and encourages start-ups and technological development. It helps make the internet ready for the future, a space which benefits everyone, not only a powerful few,” he said.</s>The European Parliament voted in favor of reforming the (admittedly due to be adjusted) copyright law in Europe. By itself, the new law isn't that controversial and will actually help creators and journalists get their fair share of income from big online players like YouTube and Google News. But don't put your torchlights and pitchforks down just yet. The directive might lead big platforms to implement upload filters to catch copyright infringement before content is published — which could possibly kill GIFs and memes.

Okay, let's slow down now. First, we need to address where exactly those upload filters come from. Previously (and anywhere else in the world) a person or entity who uploaded content to an online platform was solely responsible for copyright infringement he or she committed with their material. The new EU draft now also puts this liability into platforms' hands, and it's formulated beautifully in a Q&A published today:

You see, the law itself doesn't ask for upload filters. But naturally, platforms don't want to be sued, and an obvious protection are filters that hinder anyone from publishing copyrighted material in the first place. Thus, platforms will probably turn towards these safety measures.

However, we all know that today's content filters are just not very good. They tend to be too restrictive or not restrictive enough. And I'm talking about technology from one of the world's most wealthy companies — Google — with an interest to protect itself from copyright claims on its platforms. Thus, the EU filters will most likely turn out to be rather too restrictive than not restrictive enough.

Before we get to memes, we need to take a look at another legal topic first: fair use. The new directive explicitly wants member states to protect uploading and sharing of works in order to quote, criticize, review, caricature, parody or pastiche others. This should in theory ensure that GIFs and memes are exempted from copyright claims, and gives your average meme poster more protection from draconic lawsuits.

But now, to memes. From the lawmakers' perspective, you and the big platforms won't get into any trouble whatsoever should you share memes and GIFs. However, we know that filters will probably be rather too restrictive than too lenient, so that platforms don't lose money over copyright claims. And we know that there are a ton of cases on the boundaries of fair use, which shows that parody and caricature are thin lines even we humans have trouble recognizing.

A filter will just see that any given meme is identical to a protected picture — it won't assess whether the text surrounding said meme is caricaturing or criticizing the original copyrighted material. The filter simply won't let the meme pass.

As you can see, this initiative will have far-reaching consequences that we can't fully grasp yet. We'll have to wait and see how individual member states implement this directive — and how YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, reddit, and other big platforms react to those new laws.
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.