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The European Parliament has voted against a proposed copyright law that is meant to strengthen rules for copyright owners in the age of the internet.
The narrowly defeated European Commission proposal has been pushed back to the European Parliament for further debate and will be revisited in September, by which time sections of the proposal may have been rewritten.
Of the 627 MEPs at the vote[1], 318 were against the proposal, 278 were in favor, and 31 abstained.
Had it passed in its current form, the law would have required online platforms such as Google, Twitter, and Facebook to monitor potential copyright infringements much more closely, while publishers, media, and artists would have gained more power to enforce copyright.
Opponents say two key articles in the proposal would have effectively killed off memes and other ways people share content online. ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols argues that the law would "wreck the internet"[2].
However, supporters, such as musicians, believe the law will help close the 'value gap', or the difference between what upload sites and services like Spotify and Apple Music pay artists.
SEE: IT pro's guide to GDPR compliance[3] (free PDF)
Ahead of yesterday's vote, IFPI published a letter[4] from former Beatles member Paul McCartney imploring MEPs to support the proposal, arguing that upload content platforms "refuse to compensate artists and all music creators fairly for their work, while they exploit it for their own profit".
The key sticking points in the EU Copyright Directive are, Article 11, dubbed the 'link tax' by critics, and Article 13, referred to as upload filters by critics.