(CelebrityAccess) – The European Parliament voted today (July 5) to reject online copyright reform, meaning the debate over the controversial bill that saw music publishers and media companies pitted against some of the world’s leading internet giants will remain ongoing.
While the vote was close with 278 in favor, 318 against, and 31 abstentions, the outcome rejects an earlier committee decision to approve the draft law, which will now be sent back to parliament for further discussion.
In the two years since the European Commission first proposed revising online copyright rules, tech giants like Google, Facebook, and YouTube have fought hard against the changes arguing in favor of internet freedom. Believing that the bill will not only stifle creativity and content-sharing online, the tech companies simply don’t want the headache that would come along with having to police for such far-reaching infringements online.
The music industry, on the other hand, was united on the need to introduce legislation such as Article 13, which was designed to tackle the growing value gap surrounding user-generated content on video upload services.
Earlier this week, Sir Paul McCartney and more and than 1,300 other recording artists even signed an open letter to the European Parliament in hopes of persuading the committee to vote in favor of the law. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
German MEP Axel Voss, who has led the fight to reform the Copyright Directive legislation, spoke in Parliament ahead of the vote saying: “It’s an end of the exploitation of artists on the internet,” adding that global online giants had made “huge profits at the cost of creatives”.
While that has, no doubt, been the case, the fight continues.
The legislation will now be placed on hold and will go before a full debate this upcoming September.
