EU Approves Controversial Copyright Directive, Including Internet ‘Link Tax’ and ‘Upload Filter’

The European Parliament has voted in favor of the Copyright Directive, a controversial piece of legislation intended to update online copyright laws for the internet age. The directive was originally rejected by MEPs in July following criticism of two key provisions: Articles 11 and 13, dubbed the “link tax” and “upload filter” by critics. However, in parliament this morning, an updated version of the directive was approved, along with amended versions of Articles 11 and 13.

The final vote was 438 in favor and 226 against. The fallout from this decision will be far-reaching, and take a long time to settle. The directive itself still faces a final vote in January 2019 (although experts say it’s unlikely it will be rejected).

After that it will need to be implemented by individual EU member states, who could very well vary significantly in how they choose to interpret the directive’s text. The most important parts of this are Articles 11 and 13. Article 11 is intended to give publishers and papers a way to make money when companies like Google link to their stories, allowing them to demand paid licenses.

Article 13 requires certain platforms like YouTube and Facebook stop users sharing unlicensed copyrighted material. Critics of the Copyright Directive say these provisions are disastrous. In the case of Article 11, they note that attempts to “tax” platforms like Google News for sharing articles have repeatedly failed, and that the system would be ripe to abuse by copyright trolls.

Source: theverge.com