EU Parliament rejects fast-track mandate for controversial Copyright Directive proposal

The EU parliament plenary meeting has voted against (318 / 278) the negotiation mandate proposed by the Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) for the controversial EU Copyright Directive proposal.

In principle, this means that the Parliament has voted against a fast-track legislative procedure and a closed-door debate with the EU Member States.

It seems that the most contentious articles of the draft proposal were article 11 and 13. The Parliament position appears to require a watering down of article 11 and 13. There are also voices for abolishing the articles all together.

Article 11, also dubbed the "news article link tax", would conceive a new ancillary right for publishers of press publications for the digital use of (or linking to) their articles.

Article 13 would introduce a new type of intermediary, the online content sharing service provider (e.g. Youtube or Soundcloud), to conclude licensing agreements with copyright holders and install technical solutions, such as content recognition technologies, to prevent access to unauthorised works.

The Proposed Copyright Directive will now be up for amendments by JURI and a discussion and vote in the next plenary session in September. This means that the Proposed Directive can well be amended before it goes through to negotiations with the Member States.