Yesterday, the European Parliament voted to reform its copyright laws in all its states EU, but also a series of amendments tabled for discussion.
The original plan for the reform of the copyright law was written by Julia Reda, a member of the European Parliament for the German Pirates Party, but later amended in June following a series of consultations with various EU political parties.
During these negotiations, five changes were introduced to Ms Reda's original plan. In the vote in the European Parliament yesterday, three of these amendments were not accepted.
One of the unapproved amendments refers to an amendment to the text of the law on the abolition of the European Commission's guidelines on copyright limitations and exceptions.
Those who were defeated were the most dangerous for the freedoms of EU citizens, including Freedom of Panorama, which was trying to pass restrictions on taking photographs in public places.
The second amendment referred to the right of artists and professionals to make their content available online free of charge, which EU lawmakers wanted to ban and force them to demand financial compensation for their work, even if they did not want it.
Such a thing in practice is canceled by any open licenses, such as her Creative Commons, and denies a person the right to do whatever they want with its content.
The third amendment was the intention to create a tax on Internet news.
After heavy lobbying by media groups, the amendment would allow each news agency to charge others Companies or professionals, as long as they use their stories.
This amendment had the potential to destroy the quality of the content circulating online. This is especially true for search engines like the Google or Bing, who would have to pay for any news links that appeared in their search results.
