Europe struggles to get support for Article 13 digital copyright laws

The most controversial part of the EU Copyright Directive, known as Article 13, is struggling to pass through Europe’s Byzantine bureaucracy.

German MEP Julia Reda recently reported that the process of passing Article 13, which seeks to block the uploaded of content that may infringe copyright, as well as Article 11, which seeks to make people pay when they even share a link, had stalled.

This roadblock was thrown up by the European Council, in which several countries rejected a compromise recently proposed to the wording of all this stuff. Last September the directive was approved by the European Parliament, having previously been rejected. It also looks like pretty much everyone else hates it too, including the content producers it claims to be trying to protect.

“This surprising turn of events does not mean the end of Link Tax or censorship machines, but it does make an adoption of the copyright directive before the European elections in May less likely,” wrote Reda. “The Romanian Council presidency will have the chance to come up with a new text to try to find a qualified majority, but with opposition mounting on both sides of the debate, this is going to be a difficult task indeed.

“The outcome of today’s Council vote also shows that public attention to the copyright reform is having an effect. Keeping up the pressure in the coming weeks will be more important than ever to make sure that the most dangerous elements of the new copyright proposal will be rejected.”

Reda is quite rightly anticipating the standard MO of the EU, which is to keep putting decisions to the vote until it gets the result it wanted from the beginning. Usually there is presumably some degree of horse-trading behind the scenes followed by just enough of a cosmetic tweak to the issue to allow those who change their mind to save face. Let’s see if it’s any different this time.