EU Parliament Backs Controversial Copyright Directive

European Union – The EU Parliament in Strasbourg
Its latest decision on copyright law has the continent divided

The EU Parliament in Brussels has voted in the much-discussed copyright reform, including the controversial Article 13, that has kept the industry talking for years.

The official aim of the reform is to make sure operators of online platforms pay for copyrighted material uploaded onto their platforms.

To facilitate this under Article 13, online platforms hosting content will have to introduce upload filters that scan uploaded material for copyright infringement prior to publishing.

Critics pointed out that small businesses wouldn’t be able to pay for the policing of content, which is why the directive includes a provision that exempts platforms younger than three years with an annual turnover of less than €10 million.

Critics also point out that a lot of content is going to be blocked for no reason, as is always the case with automated algorithms like upload filters.

Representatives of established songwriters and authors of other creative works have always maintained their stance in favor of the copyright reform, while authors of new forms of creative online content and, of course, the tech companies themselves, remained against it. 

Bodies representing the established industry, including publishers, authors’ rights societies like GEMA or PRS For Music, artist management associations like the MMF and industry bodies like IFPI or BPI, have voiced their approval of the EU Parliament’s decision.

They believe the new copyright directive, once implemented into law by the EU member states, will close the value gap that arose because YouTube wasn’t paying rights holders adequately in their eyes. 

Since the new breed of online creators does not have a worldwide network of established industry bodies yet, they made their voices heard elsewhere, mostly through a myriad of YouTube channels and other social media outlets.

They generally state that the copyright directive shows the EU politicians’ lack of understanding of the online world, where almost everybody has become an author and content creator.

The EU Parliament believes it has addressed this aspect by making exceptions for Memes and GIFs.

Apart from Article 13, which was so controversial that a separate EU Parliament vote was held to decide whether that article should remain in the final text or not, another Article has been controversially discussed, Article 11.

It introduces a licensing fee for links to journalistic outlets, a practice which Google News has built a business on top of. Again, the EU politicians emphasize that private individuals linking to journalistic content via short snippets will be exempt.

Tech-friendly journalistic outlets have claimed that the new directive made it clear that the representatives of an old content economy had gone on a crusade against Google.

German online policy website Netzpolitik.org for instance wrote that the reform was the equivalent of shooting at YouTube with a shotgun and hitting half the internet in the process. The website has maintained for years that the internet and the “remix culture” that emerged with it require completely new copyright rules.

Its founder and editor in chief Markus Beckedahl published a commentary in which he wrote: “Today is not a good day for the European online public. The EU Parliament has voted for the copyright reform and thereby set the copyright law with its old tools stemming from an old word in concrete for what looks like the next 20 years.

“We should be glad, actually: we are authors, we are publishers and according to the associations that represent us, golden days are lying ahead of us. The money from Google and Co. is going to start flowing toward us!

“However, I doubt that the reform will bring us more money. And even if [that was the case], the collateral damage for the democratic online public is far greater than the proponents of this reform, with their tunnel vision of economic self-interest, seem to be aware of.”