The Copyright Directive has been passed, bringing upside down YouTube and other platforms

The MEPs adopted the Copyright Directive on the Internet copyright, in a vote in plenary with 348 votes in favor, 274 against and 36 abstentions.

ΜThis completes the legislative process for the European Parliament, which began in 2016.

EU Member States will now have to approve the EP decision in the coming weeks. If the Member States approve the text adopted by Parliament, the new rules will enter into force after their publication in the Official Journal of the EU, with a period of 2 years to be implemented.

The directive, agreed between the EP and Council negotiators, aims to ensure that intellectual property rights and obligations also apply online. The YouTube, Facebook and Google News is among the most well-known services that will be directly affected by the new legislation.

The two most controversial points of the Copyright Directive relate to Articles 11 and 13. Article 13 obliges online platforms to create filters to monitor the material posted by users to ensure that there are no copyright infringements. Article 11 obliges online platforms that post informative, news articles - such as Google News - to enter into a license agreement with the original publisher.

«I know there are many fears about what users can or may not do - we now have clear guarantees of freedom of expression (…) and creativity on the Internet", Said in a message on Twitter the vice-president of the European Commission Andrew Ansip, expressing his satisfaction.

This reform with financial stakes, which was presented by Ansip in September 2016, became the target of an unprecedented pressure from the supporters, as well as its opponents, who mobilized until the last day.

Proponents of the reform insisted that "American giants" such as Google and Facebook, who benefit from the advertisements created by the works they host, should pay more fairly to musicians, cinematographers, photographers, publishers, journalists.

In the other camp were the Silicon Valley giants, as well as Internet freedom advocates, who feared that this distribution channel would be curtailed.

The agreement, according to European Parliament website provides:

The tech giants will share the proceeds with artists and journalists

The agreement aims to enhance the potential of the holders Copyright, mainly creators such as musicians, performers and screenwriters, as well as news publishers and journalists, to negotiate better contracts for the use of their works appearing on online platforms. This is achieved by making online platforms directly accountable for the content posted on them and automatically giving news publishers the right to negotiate deals by their reporters on articles used by newscast hubs.

Ensuring freedom of expression

A significant number of measures are specifically designed to ensure that the internet remains an open space for freedom of expression.

As news sharing is explicitly excluded from the application of the directive, this practice can continue just as in the past. However, the directive also contains measures against news outlets that abuse this right. The snippets can therefore continue to appear on Google News pages, for example, or when an article is shared on Facebook, provided they are "very soon".

Posting protected works for citation, critique, review, parody, parody, or satire is protected by ensuring that memes and GIFs continue to be available and shared on online platforms.

Many online platforms will not be affected

The text also states that posting works in online encyclopedias in a non-commercial way, such as on Wikipedia, or open source software platforms such as GitHub will be automatically excluded. Innovative platforms will be subject to lighter obligations than those most well-known.

Stronger bargaining rights for creators and performers

Creators and performers will be able to claim additional fees from distributors who exercise their rights when the initially agreed reward is disproportionately lower than the distributor's profits.

Support for research in cutting-edge technologies and protection of tradition

The agreement aims to facilitate the use of copyrighted material for research use through text and data mining, thus eliminating a significant competitive disadvantage faced by European researchers. It is emphasized that restrictions on the use of intellectual property will not apply to material used for educational purposes.

Finally, the directive also allows for the free use of protected content for the protection of cultural heritage. Works that are no longer commercially available can be used freely if there is no organization for their collective management to issue a license.

How this agreement changes the current situation

At the moment, internet companies have little incentive to sign fair contracts with their owners. Copyright, as they are not considered responsible for the content posted by their users. Their only obligation is to remove copyrighted content when their owner so requests.

This practice, however, is painful for copyright holders and does not guarantee a fair reward. Making internet companies responsible will strengthen the ability of copyright holders (mainly musicians, performers and screenwriters, as well as news publishers and journalists) to claim fair contracts and therefore fair remuneration for the digital exploitation of their material.

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