The EU copyright reform has taken another hurdle. The governments of the EU member states, including Germany, voted on Wednesday mostly by the agreement recently reached with negotiators with the European Parliament. According to Pirate MEP Julia Reda, only the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Finland, Italy and Poland voted against the compromise.
A joint statement by the five countries states that the directive is "more in the current form for the Digital Single Market than a step backwards": "Above all, we regret that the directive does not strike the right balance between protection of rightholders and the interests of EU citizens and businesses. " Slovenia and Belgium abstained and 21 countries voted in favor of the compromise.
Negotiators from the Parliament and the Council had agreed last week on a draft copyright reform. Among other things, it provides for an ancillary copyright for press publishers that goes beyond the German ancillary copyright law, which was passed in 2013 and is deemed dysfunctional, as well as liability of platform operators such as YouTube for copyright infringement by their users.
Contradiction to the coalition agreement
The Federal Government was represented in the vote by Federal Minister of Justice Katarina Barley (SPD). She had received a petition on Monday with around 4.7 million signatures. The signatories are not opposed to the reform as a whole, but to the ancillary copyright law (Article 11) and the new obligations on platform operators - which are likely to lead to upload filters - (Article 13). Around 1.3 million of the votes should come from Germany.
Barley said on Wednesday after the vote, "I've been working within the government to get the copyright directive passed without Article 13." However, recent statements by German Chancellor Angela Merkel had already suggested that Germany would agree to the compromise.
The coalition agreement between the Union and the SPD actually says: "We reject disproportionate obligations of platforms to use upload filters to 'filter' content uploaded by users for copyright infringing content, thus avoiding negative effects on small and medium-sized publishers become."
Now it depends on the parliament
Net activists and creators, but also digital associations and digital politicians had severely criticized the compromise. On Wednesday shortly after the vote of the Council, keywords such as #Merkelfilter and #Koalitionsvertrag landed in the Twitter trends.
On March 23, there will be demonstrations in several cities, especially against Article 13, and some well-known creators want to get involved. More than a thousand young people in Cologne had already protested against the reform plans on Saturday with slogans such as "Save the Memes", "Stop Article 13" and "I'm not a Bot".
In order for the EU's copyright reform to be implemented as planned, the plenary of the EU Parliament is expected to end by the end of March.
If the parliament voted against, it will probably only give a start for the reform after the European elections in May. Theoretically, for the upcoming vote in Parliament, there is also the possibility of waving through the reform without Articles 11 and 13. SPD politician Tiemo Wölken told SPIEGEL: "Changes in content are only possible if the plenary explicitly agrees to discuss changes."
Not just votes of the CDU / CSU
Katarina Barley was unsure whether Parliament would abdicate the compromise: "I see a possibility that the proposed directive will not end up with a majority in the EU Parliament following the ongoing debate on Article 13," said the Minister of Justice, who emphasized that the copyright reform is overdue. However, this should not be at the expense of freedom of expression. "These concerns must be taken into account."
Most recently, the plenary session of the European Parliament in September 2018 dealt with copyright reform. At that time, it was not just the CDU and CSU politicians among the German delegates who spoke out in favor of the reform plans: more SPD members of parliament also voted in favor than against the project.
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