The European Parliament has approved an amended proposal to reform EU copyright law, after MEPs softened the controversial upload filter rules in the text. The proposal will now go to a so-called trilogue to reach a compromise with alternative texts supported by the European Commission and Council before it becomes law.
In July, the European Parliament rejected the text approved by its Legal Affairs Committee in favour of introducing new amendments. The copyright reform has since been the subject of intense lobbying, both by the internet industry which opposes the mandatory filtering of uploaded content for illegal materials, and the creative industry, which supports proposals to introduce remuneration for redistribution of its content online.
Snippets covered by copyright
Parliament’s position strengthens the Commission’s original proposal to make online aggregators like Google News liable for copyright infringement. Reproduction of articles would be subject to copyright, even for snippets, where only a small part of a news publisher’s text is displayed. The extended liability stops short of including hyperlinks to other works, together with "individual words" to describe them, nor would non-profit or open-source platforms like Wikimedia or GitHub be covered by the enhanced copyright protections.
In practice, this increased liability would require the aggregators to compensate publishers for using the copyrighted material. Parliament’s text also specifically requires that journalists themselves, and not just their publishing houses, benefit from remuneration stemming from this liability requirement. At the same time, in an attempt to encourage start-ups and innovation, the text approved by Parliament exempts small and micro platforms from the directive.
Staff, not algorithms
The reform of the copyright directive to bring it up to date for the internet age has been under discussion by the EU institutions for over two years, after the European Commission first proposed changes in August 2016. In May, the Council of EU states approved its position on the legislation and included increased requirements for ISPs and internet platforms to guard against illegally uploaded material protected by copyright.
The Parliament has removed any references to so-called upload filters, that would automatically filter material uploaded to platforms such as YouTube or Facebook to remove pirated content. Opposition to the Commission and Council proposals for automatic tools pointed to the potential for censorship, if platforms erred on the side of caution and started blocking a wide range of questionable content.
The Parliament upheld the principle that platforms could be held liable for content uploaded by users, but said in statement that any action taken to check that uploads do not breach copyright rules "must be designed in such a way as to avoid catching non-infringing works". These platforms will moreover be required to establish rapid redress systems, operated by staff and not algorithms, in order address complaints and reverse any wrong take-down decisions quickly.
