CDT Welcomes European Parliament Decision to Redraft Copyright Rules

Today, the European Parliament voted 318-278 to reject the mandate to start negotiations with Council on the Copyright Directive proposal. The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) welcomes the Parliament’s decision, which gives Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) an opportunity to propose amendments and redraft the text that was adopted in the Legal Affairs (JURI) committee last month.

“It is only right for the Parliament to have a full debate on such controversial and potentially harmful proposals. MEPs in the Civil Liberties and Internal Market Committees found much more balanced solutions, safeguarding online free speech and innovation. We hope MEPs will work on that basis in their upcoming deliberations,” said Jens-Henrik Jeppesen, CDT’s European Affairs Director.

A majority of MEPs decided to listen to the concerns raised by CDT and hundreds of academics, more than half a million citizens, startups, human rights organisations, creators, and internet pioneers.

CDT has long called out the dangers to free expression and innovation of imposing upload filtering (Article 13) and introducing the ‘link tax’ (Article 11), and will continue to advocate for changes to the legislation before the plenary vote in September.