EU Parliament Approves Controversial Copyright Law

The European Parliament approved major new changes to EU-wide copyright laws which critics claim could lead to de facto mass censorship of online content. Tech giants like Google and Amazon have been mobilizing their users for months to protest ahead of the vote, but in the end the Copyright in the Digital Single Market directive was voted in by 348 MEPs to 274. Most controversial is Article 13, which requires sites and internet platforms to filter any user-generated content that is being uploaded without permission, or else be held liable for infringement. Although they already scan for unlicensed content, this will put a greater liability on such sites for doing so. While artists have claimed that the new law will help protect their content from infringement, advocates of internet freedom argue that it could amount to backdoor censorship of the web — although memes and use of copyrighted content for parody are excluded.