Copyright: MEPs back provisional agreement

The Legal Affairs Committee approved on Tuesday the reform of EU copyright rules provisionally agreed with EU Ministers.

The deal reached between EU negotiators aims to ensure that the rights and obligations of copyright law will also apply to the internet. The co-legislators also strove to ensure that the internet remains a space for freedom of expression. Snippets from news articles can thus continue to be shared, as can Gifs and memes.

The agreed measures enhance rights holders’ chances, notably musicians, performers and script authors, as well as news publishers, to negotiate better remuneration deals for the use of their works featured on internet platforms.

The text also specifies that these rules will not apply to uploading works to online encyclopaedias in a non-commercial way, such as Wikipedia, or open source software platforms, such as GitHub. Finally, start-up platforms will be subject to lighter obligations than more established ones.

Next steps

The draft legislation was approved by 16 votes in favour, 9 votes against, with no abstentions.

The final vote in Parliament will take place during the 25-28 March II plenary session (TBC)