EU Parliament Votes Against Controversial Copyright Laws

The EU recently voted against a copyright law which would increase websites’ control over copyright infringement and would apply a fee to news sites for linking content.

A debate regarding the law has raged for weeks between content creators and distributors. Some have stated that artists have been exploited by websites, and others have said that the law would limit freedom and creativity.

The law has caused multiple protests from websites and online personalities.

The motion ended up being rejected with a substantial 318-278 margin.

The proposed legislation was composed of two measures.

The first, Article 11, was intended to protect newspapers and online news outlets from copyright infringement. However, many people- including news outlet representatives -stated that the law could cause legal issues for online journalists who link other stories into their articles, which is a common technique.

The second, Article 13, would have forced online websites to extensively search their content for cases of copyright infringement. This was particularly concerning, as it would also call for a revision of the content that the sites’ users post themselves. Said procedure would cause many sites to implement filters on websites’ common sections.

This would not be impossible, as automated copyright detection systems do exist, yet these systems are expensive to both purchase and produce. People feared that filters, such as Youtube’s sixty million dollar system, would also become a necessity for their websites. Many websites would obviously not be able to afford this technology. Memes or remixes, which are often left in comment sections, may also have been affected by this legislation.

However, the measure garnered quite a bit of support from artists such as Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, Placido Domingo and David Guetta. These artists were mainly focused on banning illegal uploads of their music to sites such as Facebook or Youtube, stating that they were getting no revenue at all from these uploads, while the websites themselves continued to profit.

The backlash to said artists’ support came quickly. The chief of Creative Commons notably tweeted:

 “Paul McCartney, whose band started out playing cover songs that would have been blocked by these upload filters, now wants them in the EU to protect his own songs. The Past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it.”

The legislation has not been completely halted, as the Legal Affairs Committee plans to present another draft of the bill to the EU in September.

Parliament member Axel Voss addressed the current status of the legislation, stating:

a majority of MEPs [members of the European Parliament] did not support the position which myself 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.”

Featured Image via The Blue Diamond Gallery